Amish threaten to leave New York if forced to vaccinate, case is heading to SCOTUS

The fight comes as the New York Health Department has been hitting a one-room Amish school with thousands in fines after the community has refused to comply with a policy mandate that was implemented under former Governor Andrew Cuomo.

“Have we gotten to a place where we aren’t going to make room for the Amish anymore?” Hiram Sasser said, who is the attorney representing six plaintiffs in the case, per the New York Post. “When you think of Americana—apple pie, fireworks—the Amish are on that list. They’re part of the American fabric. They’re a good litmus test of our religious liberty and our tolerance."

When Cuomo was governor in 2019, there was a measles outbreak in an Orthodox Jewish community and he decided to remove religious exemptions for vaccines. New York was the second state to ever do so aside from California. Others have also joined the crowd of removing exemptions following the Covid-19 pandemic, including Maine and Connecticut.

The Amish, who usually teach their children without taking any taxpayer dollars and do so in small schoolhouses, have been in court fighting the mandate from Cuomo since 2024. In 2022, the state had started to issue $2,000 fines against small Amish community schools for being out of compliance with the mandate. Three schools that are plaintiffs in the lawsuit have been fined a total of $118,000 by the state, which has the fifth-largest Amish population at around 25,000.

Lawyers for the Amish community said that if they are not successful with the case going to the Supreme Court, they will move to Pennsylvania, which has the largest Amish population in the nation at 95,000.

“We, as a peace loving religious group, are sincerely sorry that we are causing the state a prob [sic]. We are indeed grateful to the state of NY for the many privileges freedoms and protections they have blessed us with, for many years,” plaintiff Ezra Wengerd of Canajoharie, 55, wrote in a letter shared with reporters.

“Our Almighty God wants us to fully put our faith and trust in Him. Which is in conflict to put our trust in vaccines. We are also commanded to not be conformed to this world,” the letter added.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who has been a proponent of vaccine mandates, previously said to a church congregation that those refusing the vaccine on religious grounds "aren’t listening to God and what God wants."