Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership Files Federal Lawsuit Against Trump Administration Over Broadview ICE Clergy Exclusion

On November 19, 2025, the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL) and four named individual clergy filed a federal complaint for injunctive and declaratory relief in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Eastern Division), case 1:25-cv-14168, Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership et al. v. Noem et al. Presiding judge: Robert W. Gettleman. The complaint was filed five days after the largest single-day clergy arrest at the Broadview ICE Processing Center and on the same week that the facility administration had declared a blanket ban on prayer.

Plaintiffs: The Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (a Catholic social justice organization, co-founded by executive director Michael N. Okińczyc-Cruz); Fr. Larry Dowling (Chicago Archdiocese, retired pastor, prison and jail ministry); Sr. Jeremy Midura, CSSF (Felician Sister, ICE detention and maximum-security prison ministry); Fr. Dennis Berry, S.T. (Trinity Missions, 51-year veteran cleric); and Fr. Dan Hartnett, SJ (Jesuit, prison, jail, and migrant ministry). Lead counsel: Thomas Howard Geoghegan and Patrick V. Dahlstrom.

Defendants named: Kristi Noem (DHS Secretary), President Donald J. Trump, Gregory Bovino (Chief Border Patrol Agent, Chicago), Pamela Bondi (Attorney General), Marcos Charles, Russell Hott, Todd Lyons, and Rodney S. Scott — along with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Justice as institutional defendants.

Claims raised: The complaint alleged three causes of action: (1) violation of the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause — the government’s total denial of clergy access to Broadview lacked any compelling government interest and substantially burdened plaintiffs’ religious exercise; (2) violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb — the access ban imposed a substantial burden on a sincere religious exercise without satisfying RFRA’s strict scrutiny; and (3) violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) — the blanket exclusion of pastoral care workers from a federally operated processing center violated detainees’ and ministers’ statutory rights. No simultaneous TRO was filed at the November 19 date; the first emergency access motion was pursued on the preliminary-injunction track ahead of Ash Wednesday 2026.

Relief sought: Declaratory judgment that DHS/ICE restrictions on clergy access were unlawful, and permanent injunctive relief requiring ICE to restore reasonable, supervised pastoral access — including prayer, Holy Communion, ashes, and other sacramental ministry — to Broadview detainees.

Note on Rev. David Black: The task substrate pack named Rev. Black as “among the named plaintiffs.” Primary source review of the complaint and all press coverage of the filing does not support this. The named individual plaintiffs are Fr. Dowling, Sr. Midura, Fr. Berry, and Fr. Dan Hartnett — all Catholic clergy. Rev. Black (First Presbyterian Church of Chicago) was a documented victim of pepper-ball violence at Broadview on September 19, 2025, and a vocal public witness throughout the arc, but is not identified in any tier-1 source as a named plaintiff in 1:25-cv-14168. The 2025-09-19 timeline entry notes he “subsequently became a plaintiff” — this requires independent verification against the docket; no corroborating source has been located.

Context: Place in the Broadview Clergy-Encounter Arc

The November 19 filing was the judicial escalation of a sustained, two-month confrontation at the Broadview ICE Processing Center — itself a product of Operation Midway Blitz, DHS’s multi-agency enforcement surge launched September 6–8, 2025. The lawsuit was built on a fully documented factual record: the September 19 pepper-ball attack on Rev. David Black; the October 11 eucharistic procession denial; the November 1 All Saints Day exclusion of Bishop García-Maldonado’s delegation before 2,000 faithful; the November 7 federal agent’s declaration that “there is no more prayer in front of building or inside the building because this is the state”; and the November 14 arrest of seven faith leaders — the largest single-day clergy arrest in the arc, the same day Sister JoAnn Persch, RSM (age 91), died. The complaint cited this accumulated factual pattern — documented without any compensating government security justification — as the basis for its RFRA and Free Exercise claims.

The government’s legal defense rested on characterizing Broadview as “a field office, not a detention facility” to avoid RLUIPA’s detainee religious-access protections. Gettleman’s preliminary injunction rulings repeatedly rejected this framing.

Injunction lineage — this case is the parent of the Gettleman orders:

• February 12, 2026: Judge Gettleman granted a limited preliminary injunction requiring defendants to allow CSPL plaintiffs to enter Broadview on Ash Wednesday (February 18, 2026) to offer ashes and Holy Communion. Finding: “The court finds that the government has substantially burdened plaintiffs’ exercise of religion.” This is the injunction referenced in the arc substrate pack.
• March 31, 2026: Expanded preliminary injunction requiring daily clergy access during Holy Week (April 2–5, 2026).
• April 7, 2026: Broadest preliminary injunction — “Defendants are directed to allow plaintiffs to access the Broadview facility on each day of the pendency of this litigation to offer services for those who desire them.” Gettleman found “likelihood of success on the merits” of the RFRA claim.
• May 19, 2026: CSPL announced a negotiated agreement with DHS/ICE allowing daily pastoral visits inside Broadview — the milestone resolution of the nearly 10-month campaign.

The filing is the third entry in the Broadview clergy-encounter arc and the first judicial-mechanism event in that arc. It transforms the confrontation from a street-level resistance narrative into a federal constitutional adjudication — and ultimately produces an ongoing access regime at Broadview.

Cross-references: 2025-09-19–rev-david-black-pepper-ball-pastor-at-broadview-ice-processing-center · 2025-10-11–eucharistic-procession-denied-broadview-ice-operation-midway-blitz · 2025-11-07–ice-broadview-prayer-ban-first-amendment · 2025-11-14–seven-clergy-arrested-at-broadview-sister-joann-persch-dies-same-day