Religious Freedom Day, 2025

Proclamation 10883 of January 15, 2025

Religious Freedom Day, 2025

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Faith sustains many of us across our Nation, sharpening
our sense of purpose, uniting us in shared belief, and
reminding us of our obligations to each other. Whether
you worship in a church, synagogue, temple, or mosque,
the Constitution of the United States protects every
American's right to practice their faith freely or to
practice no faith at all. Today, we celebrate our
constitutional right to religious freedom which makes
us a beacon of liberty and recommit to protecting that
right, both here at home and around the world.

We are all blessed to live in a Nation that is home to
people of many faiths. However, even in our land of
liberty, too many people are afraid that practicing
their faith will bring fear, violence, and
intimidation. Over the past year, we have seen a
shocking rise in antisemitism in the wake of Hamas's
terrorist attack against Israel and a disturbing rise
in Islamophobia. Hate has no safe harbor here in
America. And around the world, minority communities
continue to live in fear of violence and are denied
equal protections under the law, including Christians
in some countries.

My Administration is committed to ensuring that people
of every faith and belief can live out their deepest
conviction freely, peacefully, and safely. Working with
the Congress, my Administration secured the largest
ever increase in funding for the physical security of
non-profit organizations, including places of worship.
Through that program and many related efforts, we
continue to work across government to ensure that all
religious communities are able to practice their faith
without fear. Additionally, I created the inter-agency
group to counter Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and
Related Forms of Bias and Discrimination within the
United States. We released the first-ever United States
National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, which works
to counter antisemitism and protect Jewish communities.
We also released the first-ever National Strategy to
Counter Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Hate, which works to
combat these forms of hate and safeguard Muslim and
Arab Americans. Both strategies seek to strengthen
coalitions across religious communities to bring an end
to hate.

We are also working to promote and protect religious
freedom worldwide, because it is not only an American
constitutional right--it is a human right, enshrined in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And so,
around the globe, we are working with governments and
organizations to end discrimination against religious
groups. My Administration has provided $100 million to
promote religious freedom worldwide. We have also
provided hundreds of millions more to support victims
fleeing religious repression. And we have been cracking
down on forced labor, which is often connected to the
targeting of religious minorities. My Administration
sanctioned more than 240 individuals and entities for
serious human rights abuses under the Global Magnitsky
Sanctions Program. The Office of the Special Envoy to
Monitor and Combat Antisemitism at the Department of
State promoted the United States-led ``Global
Guidelines for Countering Antisemitism,'' a set of
international best practices for effective public
policy against antisemitism, which more than 40
countries and entities have endorsed. My

Administration also ended the discriminatory travel ban
that prevented individuals from several Muslim-majority
and African countries from entering the United States.
And the Department of State conducted a review of visa
applications and took various corrective actions to
process applications that were impacted by that ban,
including reconsidering previously denied applications.

Today, we recognize how religious freedom is at the
core of who we are as a Nation. It is central to the
freedom we offer all Americans. And it is threaded
throughout all our work to advance human freedom and
dignity in the world. The task for all of us is to
defend and protect religious liberty for everyone, to
build a world where no one is endangered for what they
believe, and to see one another as neighbors.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of
the United States of America, by virtue of the
authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of
the United States, do hereby proclaim January 16, 2025,
as Religious Freedom Day.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
fifteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two
thousand twenty-five, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and forty-
ninth.