Democrats and the liberal media lost their minds over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” border enforcement policy, which inadvertently led to illegal immigrant parents being temporarily separated from their children. But it wasn’t just congressional leaders and political pundits who were frustrated with the policy.
Six hundred members of the United Methodist Church had previously filed a formal complaint against Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the “zero tolerance” policy — but that complaint has now been dismissed by church leaders.
Complaint dropped over technicality
The complaint was dropped by a leader in the church, which Sessions is a member of, because it sought to punish political activity, which is reportedly outside the church’s jurisdiction.
A letter to the Department of Justice from the District Superintendent of Sessions’ Alabama church, Rev. Dr. Debora Bishop, stated that the church can only discipline members for their personal conduct, not for political activities like enacting or enforcing policies as part of their job with the federal government.
“In this matter, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was carrying out the official policy of the President and/or the United States Department of Justice,” Bishop wrote.
She added: “It was not an individual act. I believe this type of conduct is not covered by the chargeable offense provisions of The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, 2016 for laypersons.”
“Zero tolerance”
Some members and leaders of the church had taken issue with the child separation aspect of the “zero tolerance” border enforcement policy, which stemmed from a 1997 court ruling and has occurred in all administrations since then.
Church members even went so far as to accuse Sessions of child abuse, immorality, racial discrimination and “dissemination of doctrines contrary to the standards of doctrine” of the church.
Sessions was also criticized harshly for his actions regarding the Black Lives Matter group and internal police investigations.
The complaint read in part: “As his denomination, we have an ethical obligation to speak boldly when one of our members is engaged in causing significant harm in matters contrary to the Discipline on the global stage.”
For his part, President Donald Trump ended the practice that resulted in families being separated via executive order and has since been working diligently to reunite those families who had been separated earlier.
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Despite the great sanctimonious outrage from elected Democrats, the liberal media, and even the attorney general’s own church against the separation policy, the policy had actually been in place for more than 20 years with little or no media coverage under prior administrations.
This ridiculous complaint from the church against a member who was simply doing his job — as previous attorneys general and others had done before him — should never have been filed in the first place, but at least it has been withdrawn now. Good riddance.