NC Methodist church sues over Trump immigration policy (02-18-2025--Hour2)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] This story from WBTV headlined, Charlotte faith-based organizations joined suit against Trump administration over immigration policies. So the churches that I assume have been making money with their programs, and by that I mean, you know, getting people to come to their churches and donate money to their coffers,

[00:00:56] they have opinions on government policy, which is kind of political, which I thought churches weren't supposed to be engaged in. But, you know, it's different when Democrats do it. And the story from Dalford Jones at WBTV starts thusly.

[00:01:20] In response to the Trump administration rescinding a policy that protected suspected illegal immigrants in places of worship, two North Carolina religious organizations have joined a lawsuit. They're called churches.

[00:01:33] They're called churches.

[00:02:04] border protection agents, the power to arrest or even serve warrants in what were once protected areas. I know that that gang member from Venezuela is, you know, hiding out in your church. And yes, yes, he's, you know, a serial killer, rapist, torturer and all of that. But olly olly oxen free. I'm inside this building and that means no one can come and serve an arrest warrant here.

[00:02:33] Ha ha ha. Take that, coppers. Two directives were ordered by the Department of Homeland Security in January to, quote, end the invasion of the U.S. southern border and empower law enforcement to protect Americans.

[00:02:46] The first directive undoes guidelines set by President Joe Biden to protect sensitive areas like schools, hospitals and places of worship from searches and arrests of suspected undocumented immigrants. Once again, the worst first. These are the violent criminals. You are protecting violent criminals.

[00:03:16] The second directive gives agents the power to use their common sense for enforcement on a case by case basis. As we heard in the last hour in that story at WSOC TV, the the head of the local ICE enforcement operations, she says, we're not going into those places. So you have.

[00:03:43] The Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. Well, that didn't take long, did it, Methodists? Right. You guys had your big breakup over your your Marxist ideology, infecting that church creates the big schism. You have all of these different congregations and churches and they all start peeling away. You're losing tons of members.

[00:04:11] And and within I'm trying to remember when it was that we I think it was over the summertime where they had their big conference here in Charlotte, the national or the United Methodist Church, right, that the national conference or whatever was they all met in Charlotte and they voted to to to basically pursue a path of progressivism. Right.

[00:04:38] To start undoing all of these things that were the way the church had operated before. When it comes to gay marriage, transgenderism, you know, and illegal immigration, apparently didn't take long. Right. Here they are. This is what the people in the United Methodist Church. This is what they want now, because the people who don't want it by and large have left.

[00:05:04] And they've started, you know, either it was called disaffiliation. So they're either just like a standalone local church. A lot of the others have have hooked up with a new entity called the Global Methodist Church. And the United Methodist Church, you could read the writing on the wall. This stuff has been coming for a long time.

[00:05:26] And so here they are, as expected, weighing in on a political matter and joining 26 other, quote, faith-based organizations. OK, the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, that's the church. OK, it's not a faith-based organization. Right. This is not like some standalone charity or something or an affiliated with the church charity. This is the church.

[00:05:55] This is the United Methodist Church of Western North Carolina. And they have now joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its policies. The communications director for the WNCC United Methodist Church, Amy Yeager, is quoted in the piece. She says they don't want to stand in the way of law enforcement doing their jobs and keeping us safe. Well, that's a lie, Amy. Amy, yes, you do.

[00:06:25] You want to use the church building as a barrier. That is precisely what you're doing. So, look, take your position, right? Just stand your ground. Say this is what you want to do. This is what the church is going to do. It is going to shield criminal illegal aliens from deportation. That's what you want to do. So just say it. Don't whiz on my boots and tell me it's raining.

[00:06:55] Stop gaslighting. We don't want to stand in the way. I mean, in so much as like a wall stands in the way of somebody. She says, quote, What we are asking and what we have lost through the rescission of this sensitive location policy is for those agencies to go through the proper channels to receive a judicial warrant to make those arrests.

[00:07:18] This is exactly what Gary, not my fault, McFadden used in order to do the very same thing, which is to stymie efforts to remove criminal aliens from our country. The, quote, judicial warrant. These are civil proceedings. The ICE warrants are civil proceedings. And so by throwing in this judicial warrant.

[00:07:47] They're saying you got to go to a judge and you got to get a judge to do this. Well, they can't do that because this isn't there's no judge that does this. It's a different track. By the way, the what is it? The African Methodist Episcopal Zion. Yeah. So the AME Zion Church is also signed on to this. Get this. The Methodist.

[00:08:15] They state there has been a decrease in attendance with the new policies under the new Trump directives. So this is hurting their till. See, so that's why they're filing a lawsuit. It's because they've noticed a decrease in attendance, quote, which not only prohibits us from being able to minister and care for our congregations, because I guess you can't go to their homes or something.

[00:08:41] But it also leads to a decrease in tithing and monetary donation, which, again, decreases our ability to be able to support and care for our communities and our neighbors. It's a money play. Keep the law. Right. That said or keep the directives that say you can't come into our spaces. So this way, people feel comfortable coming to our spaces so we can keep getting their money so we can do the good work.

[00:09:08] Obviously, like there. I don't know. I don't even know if faith based organization is an accurate description anymore for the UMC. All right. I hope you had a happy holiday season. But tell me if something like this happened at your house. Your family and friends are gathered around. Maybe y'all are in the living room. You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing. And then somebody says, hey, dad, remember those old VHS tapes? Did you ever get them transferred? And then the room gets all quiet.

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[00:10:35] And unfortunately for them and their rude awakening on the election day, the people do not agree with you. They just don't agree with you. And that's what they are trying to wrestle with. And so you can do all of these marches that you want to do. But the people spoke at the ballot box and said they want a restoration from the chaos, right? They want relief from the chaos.

[00:11:06] Up in Brevard, message has not been received. At the Transylvania Times, you have to say it like that. It's Transylvania County. In the wake of federal efforts to expel immigrants lacking permanent legal status. So this was a new one. I've heard all the different iterations of illegal alien, which is like that's the phrase that's in the law.

[00:11:33] That's why the term exists is because that's what's in the law, because that was the legal designation and description and definition of people who come to the country illegally, not permitted to be here, don't have a visa. They have no legal status. And so they are illegal aliens.

[00:11:50] I have seen the arguments about this, and I said this years ago, which is probably a better because they have not been, you know, if you just you come into contact with somebody and you don't actually know their legal status at some point before they are adjudicated to be an illegal alien, you can then say that they are an unauthorized alien. An unauthorized immigrant, right?

[00:12:15] Because they don't have clearance to be here. They have no authorization to be here. Once they get adjudicated as, yeah, you really don't have any authorization to be here. You fit this definition. You are now an illegal alien. So I can understand if you wanted to call them something else, much like you don't call somebody a murderer if they're simply a defendant, right?

[00:12:41] They're an accused murderer, but we don't know yet because they haven't gone through the trial, okay? So I understand if you want to split that here. But then they start, you know, changing the words to be undocumented immigrant, and then immigrant somehow became a dirty word, and now it's migrant. And then it was, you know, not unauthorized, but undocumented, undocumented migrant.

[00:13:08] Yeah, then they dropped the undocumented, and it just became migrant. And that's not, that is actually another term. That describes something else. Migrant farmers, migrant workers. Those are different classifications of people, and it's not a pejorative. It is a definition of your status. And so now this is a new one.

[00:13:32] Thanks to the Transylvania Times, David Bradley, they're calling it immigrants lacking permanent legal status. Well, that's not true either. They're not expelling people who are here on an HB2 visa, right? People who are here on a tourist visa, they're not expelling people who are not permanent legal status. That's not, that's, or who are lacking permanent legal status.

[00:14:02] People who are here legally, temporarily, they're not getting deported, right? So this isn't even accurate. Your attempts to euphemize this term and to, you know, to try to pretty this thing up and, oh, I don't want to offend or whatever the reason is for this, to soften this image, it's not even accurate. And that's your job, David Bradley.

[00:14:28] Your job is to tell accurate things in your stories. So this story is about the Brevard City Council that adopted a statement that says it is not city policy for the police to ask about immigration status when officers are involved in enforcement actions. They want everybody to know we are not cooperating with ICE.

[00:14:57] If you get arrested for some sort of criminal activity, we're just arresting you because you were suspected of criminal activity. We're not arresting you because we're racists or because we don't have empathy and sympathy for the immigrants lacking permanent legal status, a.k.a. illegal aliens.

[00:15:17] So I've got a message from a listener about this who said that the city attorney actually, the rumor is, and according to a, there were FOIA requests that were made and then documents were posted online, but have since been taken down on social media that showed the city attorney advised the council not to do this. But they did it anyway.

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[00:17:06] The decrease in the United Methodist Church, you know, they signed on to this lawsuit over Trump's immigration directives, talking about how, you know, they've noticed a decrease in their pews. There are fewer people showing up because they're all scared. And that, of course, means they're not getting tithes in the amounts that they used to. And D. Stewart says,

[00:17:30] The decrease is from UMC's woke policies that has resulted in approximately 25% of the membership, including 1 million conservative Africans leaving the UMC. Correct. That is correct. I thought 25% was low. I thought it was more than that. Yeah, they've had quite the exodus there. No pun intended. Bob says,

[00:18:00] Ask anybody who has ever coached a church-sponsored youth athletic team about background checks. All right. Has any of you guys coached a youth athletic team? Either? No? Okay. I haven't either. And then Philip says in an email to Pete at thepetecalendershow.com regarding Sheriff Not My Fault McFadden,

[00:18:30] Greatly appreciate your coverage of the Shire Reeve. I don't know what that means. Is that a reference? Is that a reference to, like, Lord of the Rings or something? Anyway, it is probably best to move on. His ignominious office performance is just part of local government, and there's not much that can be done. I disagree. I'll come back to that. His voters are happy with his leadership, and it is highly unlikely that any judge in Mecklenburg County would take any action to remove him from office.

[00:18:57] In the vernacular, Gary McFadden is better mounted than we are unless there is a better option at the polls than it will simply continue. That's – well, okay. So I disagree that it's just part of local government. There's not much that can be done. In fact, your local government is where you can do the most. That's where you can be actually the most effective is at the local level.

[00:19:25] And that's why I make a large part of my show about local and state stuff because you actually can move the needle on local stuff way easier than at the national level. That's harder, way harder. All right. Let me go to Ray patiently waiting on the phones. Hello, Ray. Welcome to the show. Hey, Pete. Hey.

[00:19:47] I had a – just a – won't you tell me if I'm right or if I'm missing something? I just assume and feel like since the beginning, the founding of our country, you know, we started having problems, the revolution. Then we moved on up to the Civil War and then to, you know, various things like the COVID and then these people breaking the immigration law.

[00:20:15] It seemed like we went through cycles all down through the decades. And every time we come out of it on the other side, making stronger laws and getting stronger and these sorts of things. And I feel like that it's – we're becoming a stronger nation as we go along. And it's even harder for the next group of people that want to destroy our nation from within or without to accomplish their task. Am I right or am I missing something?

[00:20:43] No, I mean, that is one way to look at it. I mean, you're constantly battling human nature, right? I mean, that's what we're – all of these things are always about. It's human nature. You know, no system built by humans is going to be perfect because man isn't perfect, right? Right.

[00:21:03] And so any system that you build is going to have, you know, loopholes and problems and blind spots and things that were not, you know, fathomable when laws were, you know, written. And then, you know, fast forward 100 years and there are new ways to take advantage and amass power and that sort of stuff. So, yeah, I mean, it's just – you're in a constant state of change. Right.

[00:21:27] I guess I kind of maybe lulled myself into thinking that one day we would have everything perfected and we wouldn't have to face these challenges. No. But we – I'll say now that, you know, we probably – we never will. No, correct. Right. There will always be people that come along and, you know, find ways to game the system, find ways to take advantage, find ways to take power, right? You always have to be maintaining it. It is a man-made structure.

[00:21:56] So you have to maintain it, right? So there's never a point where it's like, oh, thank goodness that's all done. Now, ideally what you have is enough people that tend to the infrastructure at any given time, but you don't need, you know, somebody to do it their entire life, you know? Like you can just have people that come in, they can help tend to it and then cycle out. Like that's the idea.

[00:22:21] You will always have enough people that care enough about preserving the infrastructure to maintain it and to defend it. You cleared that up for me, Pete. I appreciate it. All right. Well, I'm a giver. I appreciate that, Ray. That's what I do, you know? I solve the world's problems here every day from noon to three. So back to the article out of Brevard, out of the Transylvania Times.

[00:22:44] The city of Brevard felt compelled to write a letter publicly after individuals and organizations approached local officials to voice concerns. So you know they're leftists because leftists always voice concerns, right? They're never, they're never like, you know, angry protesting and, you know, whatever, challenging or attacking law enforcement or elected officials, right? They're just voicing concerns. They're just voicing concerns.

[00:23:13] In, yes, shrill and hysterical ways. But they were voicing concerns about immigration. This is according to the mayor, Maureen Kopoloff. She told the council that some immigrants, notably Hispanics, have expressed a fear of going to school, grocery stores, and even churches. Which kind of seems racist-y to me that she identified them by their race like that. But, okay, we'll get into it in a minute.

[00:23:42] All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do, too. And you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check.ground.news slash Pete.

[00:24:11] I put the link in the podcast description, too. I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The Blind Spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check.ground.news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link, and you'll get 15% off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

[00:24:40] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Reading from the story at the Transylvania Times by David Bradley about how the Brevard City Council and mayor wrote a letter, open letter, read it into their meeting minutes at their meeting on Monday.

[00:25:00] And they're like, look, the police department, the Brevard PD, the BPD isn't going to be asking your immigration status. Okay, we're not doing the deportations, and we stand with you. There's a quote from Councilman Gary Daniel who says, quote, quote, E pluribus unum, out of many one.

[00:25:29] To have a large portion of our population living in fear is terrible. To deny any group of people the American dream is to deny the heritage and history that made this country great. Wait a minute. To deny any group of people the American dream? To deny any group? So open borders? So we're not allowed to have any kind of immigration laws at all?

[00:25:54] This is always an interesting thought experiment to run with people who make statements like this. Same thing with like, you know, teacher pay or per pupil expenditure. Just ask them, all right, well, what's the number? What's the optimal number? On immigration, what's the optimal number? How many people should America take in every year? Right?

[00:26:17] And it's been a while since I've seen it, but the polling that I saw several years ago on this, when you ask people these kinds of open-ended questions, the majority of people peg the number at somewhere in like the one or 200,000 range. That's what they think should be the number. They have no idea. It's like over a million. Legal. Legal. That's legal. One million a year.

[00:26:46] Illegal is on top of that. Okay? And so to say that to deny any group of people the American dream, you are espousing an open borders philosophy. So the next question should be is how many people should we not deny? Right? You can't deny anybody. You shouldn't deny any group of people the American dream. So how many is that? Anybody that can get across the border?

[00:27:12] What about the people who don't have the privilege of crossing by land? Right? Unfortunately for most of the globe's population, they can't simply go across our borders on foot. They have to get on a boat or a plane or something. So should we be running flights to allow them to get in? Right? Like where does this stop? What is the limiting principle? Ha ha! Trick question. There is no limiting principle to leftism.

[00:27:42] He added, this town or city councilman, Gary Daniel added, quote, this is a small statement from a small town, but it's something we all have to do to stand up to protect our neighbors who are breaking the law. I'm just kidding. I added that last part. Then there was councilman, Lauren Wise, who said, the statement shows that Brevard is a community, quote, of one heart. And it doesn't actually.

[00:28:12] It doesn't say that. Your statement cannot say that because your statement does not represent every single person's heart in Brevard. Again, the arrogance to think that you and your six whatever colleagues on the council speak for every single person in Brevard. That's ludicrous. But he says, Lauren says, shows that Brevard is a community of one heart

[00:28:41] and does not care what someone looks like or about where they came from. Wait a minute. Who said anything about the way somebody looks? What are you talking? This is what I mean. Like, there's so much projection on the left on these issues. They project onto, like, why do you think that immigration is only about a racial demographic? This can be about anybody from any country.

[00:29:09] The key phrase here is illegal. That's the point. Doesn't matter from what country they came. If they are here illegally, they are illegal and their race is irrelevant. It does not matter. But you see illegal alien as some sort of a euphemism for what? Hispanics? Or non-white people? Or what? Like, I don't even know what this person is saying. They said, quote, in our community, we value our citizens. Eh.

[00:29:39] No, you don't. No, you don't. This is, oh, sorry. This is, uh, Councilman Mack Morrow who said, in our community, we value our citizens. They're not citizens. Like, that's right there in the definition of the word, too. Like, a citizen is not a non-citizen. A non-citizen would fall under the category of illegal alien, legal alien, resident alien, right? There are all sorts of different categories.

[00:30:07] People on a tourist visa, not a citizen. Listen, this is very Margaret Brennan. Margaret Brennan, you know, one of the first, uh, examples of the dumbassery of the year. And, she says that the, uh, the Holocaust was created by free speech. That's how that happened. Free speech. It's stupid. And that's what this is. You don't know the things that you're talking about. And you're writing statements

[00:30:37] saying that you're of one heart and such. It hurts to think that they, local immigrants, it hurts to think that they are anxious. If they are here legally, they have no reason to be anxious. If they are breaking the law, then, they might. By the way, one last point here on the McFadden, Gary, not my fault, McFadden, the sheriff of Mecklenburg County, who says he doesn't need to call ICE when he's about to release

[00:31:06] some criminal, illegal alien. When ICE makes its detainer request, when they send the detainer, they say in their write-up on their website, an immigration detainer serves three purposes. And purpose number two is to request information from a law enforcement agency about an alien's impending release so ICE may assume custody in a safe environment

[00:31:34] before the alien is released from the law enforcement agency's custody. That's the purpose. Let us know before you let them go. That's the reason for the detainer. And he won't do it. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to ThePeteCalendarShow.com. Again,

[00:32:04] thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.