By Chris Hughes
When Clay Mason retired and began spending more of his time serving through his church, he had no idea his 25-year career as an FBI agent would come in handy many years later, especially for the clothing ministry he oversees at the First Baptist Church on St. Clair in Frankfort, Kentucky.
Mason has been a member of the church since 1966 and is on his third term as chair of the deacons. Coming into the role with the clothes closet, Mason explained, was serendipitous.
“I bumped into another church member at the grocery store and he said the clothes closet needed new leadership. I took him up on it,” Mason said.
That was three years ago, when he was just trying to find ways to give back. Now, the clients served through the clothes closet are facing challenges as recent federal immigration policies have led to increased enforcement actions and heightened uncertainty for many immigrant communities.
The clothes closet is one of the many social ministries supported by First Baptist Frankfort, which include medical and dental clinics as well as a pharmacy. Services are offered to the community, almost no questions asked, and the ministries draw much of their clientele from immigrants.
“We don’t ask for their immigration status or any of that,” explained Amanda Smith, co-pastor of First Baptist Frankfort. “I would say we do have a fair number of people who are immigrants and that we know that mostly because of the amount of concern that came up in January,” she shared.
Smith just recently came into the role of co-pastor but has a long history with the church. She served stints as the church’s transitional minister and associate pastor for children and spiritual formation since coming back to Frankfort in 2020; before that she was an intern at the church from 2011 to 2013.
Mason estimates as much as 70% of those coming to the clothes closet are immigrants.
According to Mason, there is growing concern about recent shifts in federal immigration policy that have led to an increase in detainment and deportation actions. That concern intensified following the arrest of a man at a church in Georgia on Jan. 26—an incident that occurred shortly after the removal of Department of Homeland Security guidelines that had previously limited migrant arrests in “sensitive locations” such as churches and schools.
The chilling effect was immediately felt, Mason said, all the way down to the clothes closet at First Baptist Frankfort. Immigrants in the community have decided to stay at home rather than risking arrest, even when it comes to getting essentials like clothes and medical care.
“It’s been an obvious dip. It’s clear going through our logs that we’re probably down 30% since January,” Mason explained.
Smith said it also impacted the other social ministries of the church, with clients of the pharmacy sending relatives or friends to pick up their prescriptions for them. Those fears have eased over time, and people are beginning to come back to the pharmacy as before.
Even school attendance has been affected, Mason reported.
“It’s an across the board kind of thing,” he said. “These rules and efforts by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)…are really scaring the whole community. There’s no question, it’s the administration’s rules.”
That is where Mason’s background with the FBI comes in. Despite the challenges, he’s doing everything he can to make the church a safe place for everyone, including the immigrants who rely on ministries of the church. Ironically, he’s leaning on his law enforcement background to help the church if federal agents do show up.
“I don’t know a lot about immigration law, but I know how the federal government works. And so I just took it on myself to come up with a plan for our church,” Mason said. “When this stuff came up, I just realized this was right in my wheelhouse.”
With church leadership, Mason drafted a procedure to follow if federal agents show up at the church looking for someone. The plan includes contacting a response team, in this case Mason and a lawyer from the congregation who has agreed to help, who will make sure the agents have a proper warrant and that it is signed by a federal judge. Others in the church will ensure everyone inside is safe.
For one thing, if the agents have the proper search and seizure warrant, it needs to specify who it is for and include a description of that person. The agents will also need to have “specific, probable cause” to come in and look for that person, Mason explained. “They can’t just come in and start asking for IDs of people,” he added.
Mason has been aided in his efforts by a court order from U.S. District Judge Thoedore Chang blocking the Department of Homeland Security’s policy change on sensitive locations. The order allows the religious groups — a coalition of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-affiliated churches, congregations affiliated with six Quaker groups and the Gurdwara Sahib West Sacramento — to continue operating as sensitive locations and prohibits federal arrests of migrants on the premises in most circumstances. The order only protects the religious groups in the lawsuit, including Mason’s church, FBC Frankfort.
First Baptist Frankfort has also worked to make the church feel like a safe place again for those who are skittish about showing up. The church, like many other CBF churches, has posted signs declaring it is a CBF church under the protection of the court order, and that the Department of Homeland Security must treat it as a sensitive location. Mason has also been working on outreach to immigrants in the community to assure them it is safe to come to the church. In March, he arranged for a “Know Your Rights” event where an attorney came to the church to discuss immigrant rights, updates on the current situation and documents they might need.
With all the challenges and changes, Smith and Mason see this as an important moment to stay true to First Baptist Frankfort’s character and mission as Christ followers. “I think this church would certainly say our job is always to love our neighbor, and that is what comes first. I think this church prioritizes people so highly that they always want to act in love,” Smith shared.
“Our congregation is extremely supportive,” Mason added. “I try to take the mantra every day of serving the ‘least of these.’ Sadly, I think this administration has no concept for the least of these.”