Federal Judge Refuses to Block Immigration Enforcement Actions At Houses of Worship
She ruled that religious groups had failed to prove a "credible threat of enforcement" or that houses of worship had been "singled out" as targets.
(This story has been updated.)
By Gary Gately
A federal judge on Friday refused to block a Trump administration policy allowing immigration enforcement actions at houses of worship, ruling against more than two dozen religious groups that challenged the policy.
The decision by Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia came in a lawsuit filed by 27 Christian and Jewish groups that argued the policy violated their right to religious freedom under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
But Friedrich wrote in her 17-page decision that only several such enforcement actions had been conducted at houses of worship under the policy and that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate a “credible threat of enforcement” necessary to justify issuing a preliminary injunction.
Friedrich, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump during his first term, also wrote that no evidence had proved that places of worship “are being singled out as special targets.”
Kelsi Corkran, a lawyer representing the religious groups, said they are reviewing the decision and assessing their options.
In a statement, Corkran, the Supreme Court director at Georgetown Law School’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, added: “We remain gravely concerned about the impacts of this policy and are committed to protecting foundational rights enshrined in the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
In January, the administration ended longstanding federal procedures that had sharply restricted immigration enforcement actions at “sensitive locations” such as churches, schools and hospitals. The new policy stipulates that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents can conduct immigration enforcement actions, including arrests of undocumented immigrants, without a supervisor’s approval.
“This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens— including murders and rapists—who have illegally come into our country,” the Department of Homeland Security Department (DHS) said in a January 21 statement. “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
The policy drew fierce criticism from immigration advocates and religious leaders, as well as several legal challenges.
Two days after Homeland Security announced the policy, Bishop Mark J. Seitz, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Migration, said in a statement to his flock in his border city of El Paso, Texas: “The end of the Department of Homeland Security’s sensitive locations policy strikes fear into the heart of our community, cynically layering a blanket of anxiety on families when they are worshiping God, seeking healthcare and dropping off and picking up children at school.”
In the Washington lawsuit, plaintiffs included the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Latino Christian National Network, the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, the New York-based Rabbinical Assembly and several other Jewish groups.
They argued that the policy infringed upon their religious rights, stoked fear among congregants and led to declines in attendance at services.
“For the vulnerable congregants who continue to attend worship services, congregations must choose between either exposing them to arrest or undertaking security measures that are in direct tension with their religious duties of welcome and hospitality,” the February 11 lawsuit stated.
But Friedrich wrote that “evidence suggests that congregants are staying home to avoid encountering ICE in their own neighborhoods, not because churches or synagogues are locations of elevated risk.”
In a separate suit challenging the enforcement actions at houses of worship, a federal judge in Maryland granted a preliminary injunction in February to a group of Quakers, Baptists and Sikhs. But the narrow order applies only to those congregations, not nationwide.
“Plaintiffs have thus shown that religious exercise is being hindered by the 2025 policy for entire congregations, including United States citizens and immigrants with legal status, whose ability to worship is undermined by such reduced participation," wrote U.S. District Judge Theodore Chang, an appointee of former President Barack Obama.
Some 580 organizations, including Catholic groups (but not the USCCB), endorsed congressional legislation in February aimed at preventing immigration authorities from conducting raids at such sensitive locations.
Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, a Catholic organization that advocates for migrants in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, denounced the new policy.
“It offends basic decency by making parents, children and families vulnerable when going to school, to the hospital and to our churches,” Corbett told The Catholic Observer “The clear intent here is to generate fear in the community and to facilitate the president’s goal of an indiscriminate campaign of deportations. The social and economic impacts of increased enforcement will be deep and there will be moral revulsion at any violation of the sacred boundaries of a church, and hopefully this will occasion some critical reflection on the president’s immigration policies.”
Denver Public Schools also filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the policy in February. The suit argued that the policy led to significant declines in attendance at schools with a high proportion of immigrant students and forced the school district to “divert resources from its educational mission” to prepare for possible immigration arrests at schools.
But U.S. District Court Judge Daniel D. Domenico rejected the attempt to block the policy in March, saying the school district had failed to meet the “high burden” necessary for a preliminary injunction.
Domenico, appointed by Trump during his first term, noted that no immigration enforcement actions had occurred at schools.
The judge also said that while he understands attendance has declined at schools attended by many immigrant children, the school district had failed to prove how much, if any, of that decline had been caused by the policy “as opposed to broader concerns about increased immigration enforcement.”