New York Amish Threaten Mass Exodus as Vaccine Fight Heads Back to Supreme Court

New York's 25,000 Amish are delivering an ultimatum to state officials: drop the school vaccine mandate fight, or the community packs up its buggies and leaves. The threat comes as their religious exemption case, Miller v. McDonald, heads back to the Supreme Court next month after the Second Circuit refused to budge a second time. Three Amish schoolhouses have already piled up $118,000 in fines from the state Health Department for refusing to vaccinate children on religious grounds, and the community's lawyers say land confiscation could be next.

The case has become a national flashpoint over religious liberty, parental rights, and the reach of state vaccine mandates. It also puts the Trump administration on the side of the Amish, with the Department of Health and Human Services backing parental choice in childhood vaccination.

A Community Pushed to the Brink

Amish families in upstate New York have been in court since 2024 fighting a mandate that eliminated religious exemptions for school vaccines. The state began issuing $2,000 fines for non-compliance, and three schools named in the lawsuit -- Shady Lane in Clymer, Pleasant View in Heuvelton, and Dygert Road near Canajoharie -- now owe a combined $118,000.

Their attorneys say every Amish school in the state faces the same pressure. The schools are privately funded one-room schoolhouses on private land that receive no taxpayer money and house roughly 15 to 25 students each.

"Have we gotten to a place where we aren't going to make room for the Amish anymore?" attorney Hiram Sasser asked. "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."

Aaron Siri, another attorney on the case, said the community never wanted to litigate. "The Amish really don't want to be in this position. They don't want to be engaging in this lawsuit in any way at all. But they've been left with no choice."

A Mandate With Deep Roots

New York allowed religious exemptions to school vaccine requirements from 1966 until 2019, when then-Governor Andrew Cuomo rescinded them following a measles outbreak in an Orthodox Jewish community. The move made New York the second state after California to drop the exemption. Post-COVID, Maine and Connecticut followed, while West Virginia never had one.

State law requires children to receive between 24 and 27 vaccine doses to attend K-12 schools. For Old Order Amish families, whose faith forbids injectables and commands separation from the modern world, compliance is not an option.

Lead plaintiff Ezra Wengerd, an Amish father from Canajoharie, explained the position in a handwritten letter to the court. "We, as a peace loving religious group, are sincerely sorry that we are causing the state a prob," he wrote. "We are indeed grateful to the state of NY for the many privileges freedoms and protections they have blessed us with, for many years." He added: "Our Almighty God wants us to fully put our faith and trust in Him. Which is in conflict to put our trust in vaccines."

The Amish have a strong track record in court. In Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania they prevailed in state cases from the 1980s through the 2020s involving photo IDs, buggy safety equipment, and building codes, winning reasonable workarounds each time. The 1972 Supreme Court decision in Wisconsin v. Yoder, which exempted Amish children from compulsory education past eighth grade, anchors their legal argument.

The Legal Fight That Won't End

The Second Circuit first ruled against the Amish last year, rejecting claims that the mandate violated their First and 14th Amendment rights. The Supreme Court then sent the case back, directing the appeals court to take another look. The Second Circuit responded by reissuing its original decision in June.

Now the Amish will formally petition the Supreme Court again, with their lawyers saying the case is bound for a second review. The central claim: if New York exempts people with medical needs from vaccination, it must also accommodate religious needs.

"The argument the plaintiffs are making here is, if you're going to exempt people with medical needs, you also need to exempt people with religious needs," said Wayne State University law professor Christopher Lund. He cautioned that the court has historically been hesitant about vaccination cases. "When we had church closure cases during COVID, the court showed a lot of deference to medical authorities."

The Second Circuit has also rejected at least five other plaintiffs who lost jobs for refusing COVID-19 shots on religious grounds, a streak that makes the Amish case a potential turning point for vaccine jurisprudence.

Washington Weighs In -- and What Happens Next

The Trump administration has taken the Amish side. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said the president's recent executive order reaffirmed the administration's commitment to parental choice and religious freedom in childhood vaccination, and that HHS will continue working to protect parents' rights to make informed health care decisions for their children in line with their deeply held beliefs.

New York's Department of Health defended the mandate, saying its responsibility is to protect public health, keep New Yorkers and their families safe, and enforce the law fairly and equitably. The department called school immunization requirements "based in science."

If the Amish lose at the Supreme Court, their lawyers say the community is prepared to leave the state for good, possibly resettling in Pennsylvania, home to the nation's largest Amish population at roughly 95,000. The petition is expected next month, setting up a decision that could determine whether New York keeps its Amish communities -- and how far states can push vaccine mandates against religious conviction.