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Here's the #religiousfreedom take on the halal diet situation out of the Krome ICE Detention Center in Miami. https://religionnews.com/2020/08/19/muslim-ice-detainees-in-miami-forced-to-eat-pork-or-rotten-halal-food-civil-rights-groups-say/ @ayshabkhan @RNS A thread:
Federal and state governments are required to provide religious accommodations to those in custody under RFRA and RLUIPA. They’ve been doing this for a long time. (2/9)
In fact, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has eliminated pork from all its menus to make these sorts of accommodations easier. (3/9)
States provide kosher and halal meals to prison inmates all the time. @BECKETlaw won several of these cases:
https://www.becketlaw.org/case/rich-v-buss/ https://www.becketlaw.org/case/moussazadeh/
https://www.becketlaw.org/case/cotton-v-florida-department-corrections/
(4/9)
https://www.becketlaw.org/case/rich-v-buss/ https://www.becketlaw.org/case/moussazadeh/
https://www.becketlaw.org/case/cotton-v-florida-department-corrections/
(4/9)
Interesting case on this joined by now-Justice Gorsuch back when he was on the Tenth Circuit. That case recognized federal law required halal meals. (5/9)
Government has to show a “compelling interest” if it’s not providing religious dietary requirements. Since so many states and the federal prison system are already adept at doing this, seems unlikely the government could win that kind of case. (6/9)
That’s similar to why we won Holt v Hobbs unanimously at #SCOTUS. Since the federal prisons and 40+ state systems could accommodate Muslim inmates wearing beards, it was clear to 9 justices that there was no reason Arkansas couldn’t prove this simple accommodation... (7/9)
Now it does: https://www.becketlaw.org/case/holt/ (8/9)
These cases underscore why RFRA and similar laws are so important: government can easily trample the rights of unpopular religious minorities, but it doesn’t have to be that way. RFRA helps us as a nation to do better. (9/9)
