A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration could pursue immigration enforcement in religious spaces. For over a decade, such actions were prohibited.
On the first day of President Donald Trump‘s second term, his Department of Homeland Security rescinded an order restricting immigration enforcement activities at “sensitive locations,” including places of worship. Various religious organizations challenged the decision in court, arguing it could have a chilling effect on attendance at religious services.
Judge Dabney Friedrich of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia denied a request for a temporary restraining order halting DHS from carrying out immigration enforcement in religious spaces. Friedrich ruled that the “plaintiffs have not established a substantial likelihood of Article III standing.”
“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,” Friedrich said in her ruling.
The ruling came weeks after a federal judge in Colorado declined to block the rescinding of the “sensitive locations” policy pertaining to immigration enforcement activities in schools after a lawsuit from Denver Public Schools.
The judge in that case was unconvinced a drop in attendance was linked to the DHS’s decision to drop the former Biden-era policy.
Opponents of the DHS’s decision to rescind the policy argued it could have a chilling effect on illegal immigrants going to school and publicly practicing religion in churches or other religious places. The DHS argued it enabled criminals to “hide” at the formerly “sensitive locations” to evade law enforcement.
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“This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens — including murderers and rapists — who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” a DHS spokesperson said in January. “The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
The Trump administration has used various unorthodox methods of cracking down on illegal immigration, including partnerships with the IRS and Social Security Administration for information sharing.
