Judge Declines to Block Immigration Enforcement Operations in Places of Worship

U.S. in-migration

The ruling cast doubt on claims by a coalition of Christian and Jewish groups that their congregations were at heightened risk of becoming targets for raids under the Trump administration.

By Zach Montague

Reporting from Washington

A federal judge on Friday declined to block the Trump administration from carrying out detention and deportation operations in houses of worship, finding that a coalition of more than two dozen religious organizations had not made a clear case that their spaces and congregants had become common targets.

The ruling stemmed from a lack of clarity about how President Trump’s promised mass deportation campaign has been carried out in practice since he took office.

While the prospect of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sweeping through churches, mosques and synagogues in search of undocumented congregants immediately raised alarms in religious communities, Judge Dabney L. Freidrich of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia said there were few signs, so far, that was happening.

“Absent evidence of specific directives to immigration officers to target plaintiffs’ places of worship, or a pattern of enforcement actions, the court finds no credible threat of imminent enforcement,” she wrote.

The decision was not the final word in the case. But Judge Freidrich’s finding that the evidence was too limited to justify an initial injunction against the practice left some doubt that the groups behind the lawsuit would prevail.

In 2021, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, then the homeland security secretary, issued guidance on immigration enforcement in “sensitive locations” that had the effect of broadly prohibiting agents from making arrests in schools, hospitals, parades and places of worship.

With Mr. Trump in office, his administration moved quickly to undo those protections, directing the agency not to impose any “bright line rules regarding where our immigration laws are permitted to be enforced.”

Religious groups filed lawsuits challenging the policy change. In a separate case, a federal judge in Maryland temporarily prohibited raids in religious buildings. That ruling was narrow, however, with the judge declining to pause the policy nationwide.

In her ruling on Friday, Judge Freidrich acknowledged that there had been a handful of arrests in churches so far this year, including one at a church associated with one of the plaintiffs in the case. But she wrote that to have appropriate cause to sue, the groups needed to show stronger evidence that their buildings had been surveilled, or were being “singled out as special targets” as part of an enforcement strategy.

“The current record does not establish that such enforcement actions are sufficiently likely or imminent,” she wrote.

Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the U.S. Department of Education, the White House and federal courts.

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