Ahead of election, liberal-leaning Jewish groups decry ‘xenophobia’ and ‘hate’ toward immigrants
An array of Jewish groups release a strong political message aimed at one of two nominees less than two weeks before the election

A man carries an AI-generated image of former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump carrying cats away from Haitian immigrants, a reference to falsehoods spread about Springfield, Ohio, during a campaign rally for Trump at the Tucson Music Hall in Tucson, Arizona, September 12, 2024. (Photo by Rebecca NOBLE / AFP)
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — An array of liberal-leaning Jewish groups, including the rabbinic associations of American Judaism’s two largest denominations, joined 500 Jewish clergy in calling out “an election season defined by xenophobia, fear, and lies.”
The statement released Wednesday by HIAS, the lead Jewish immigration advocacy group, appeared to be a thinly-veiled reference to Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration. It was unusual in delivering a stark political message primarily aimed at one of the two nominees with early voting already underway.
“In an election season defined by xenophobia, fear, and lies, we pledge to stand firmly in solidarity with refugees and asylum seekers and to advocate for their rights and safety,” said the statement, signed by the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly, Reform Central Conference of American Rabbis, Union for Reform Judaism, National Council of Jewish Women, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Reconstructing Judaism movement and T’ruah, a liberal rabbinical human rights group, as well as more than 500 clergy.
“We call on all candidates to reject the politics of hatred and fear, to reject the impulse to seal our borders and turn on our own neighbors and community members,” the statement said.
The statement did not name former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, but he and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have made a crackdown on illegal immigration a centerpiece of their campaign. They and their allies have promised, per the language of the 2024 Republican platform, “the largest deportation operation in American history.”
Trump has discussed placing the migrants in camps before they are deported. He has also falsely accused Haitian immigrants of eating their neighbors’ pets, and has spotlighted crimes committed by individual migrants.
American Jews have historically been on the front lines of immigration advocacy, often motivated by their families’ own immigrant histories. Major Jewish groups in recent decades have advocated for immigrant rights and reform of the immigration system. When Trump was in office, a range of large Jewish groups across the denominational spectrum criticized some of his most contentious immigration policies, such as the 2017 travel ban on a number of Muslim-majority countries.
Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, has also proposed tougher immigration measures, vowing to back a bipartisan immigration reform bill which would have cut down on border crossings, among other restrictive measures. Trump urged Republicans to oppose the bill, both because he said it did not go far enough, and because he reportedly did not want to hand the Biden administration a legislative win on immigration in an election year.
The HIAS statement recommended several provisions that were in the bill. It advocated repairing the asylum system, establishing border policies that are humane while protecting U.S. security, and expanded pathways to legal entry and residency, among other policies.
The other signatories were Women of Reform Judaism; Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, a social justice group; Jewish World Watch, a group monitoring genocide; Keshet, an LGBTQ rights group; the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies; and the New York Jewish Agenda, a liberal policy group.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
News Who would protect New York Jews better? Cuomo and Lander trade attacks on the campaign trail
-
News Rabbis revolt over LGBTQ+ club, exposing fight over queer acceptance at Yeshiva University
-
Opinion In Qatargate fiasco, Netanyahu’s ‘witch hunt’ narrative takes cues from Trump
-
Yiddish די הגדה ווי אַ לעבעדיקער דענקמאָל פֿון אַשכּנזישער פּאָעזיעThe Haggadah as a living monument to Ashkenazi poetry
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.