Christian groups sue over Trump administration policy allowing ICE arrests at churches
Notre Dame Catholic Church in Kerrville, Texas. / Credit: Sophie Abuzeid
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 29, 2025 / 16:59 pm (CNA).
A coalition of Protestant denominations filed a lawsuit on July 28 to challenge a policy from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration that makes it easier for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to arrest suspects at churches and other sensitive locations.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in January rescinded the previous administration’s guidelines that had prevented ICE agents from conducting immigration arrests at churches and other sensitive locations unless there is approval from a supervisor or there is an urgent need to take enforcement action, such as an imminent threat.
The lawsuit brought by the Protestant coalition argues that the change in policy violates the First Amendment’s right to the free exercise of religion and two federal laws: the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
Churches suing the administration over the policy include several synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America along with Quaker churches, Baptist churches, and community churches. The nonprofit Democracy Forward is serving as co-counsel in the lawsuit.
“Raids in churches and sacred spaces violate decades of norms in both Democratic and Republican administrations, core constitutional protections, and basic human decency,” Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement.
“Faith communities should not have to choose between their spiritual commitments and the safety of their congregants,” Perryman said. “Democracy Forward is honored to be alongside these religious leaders in court. We will not give up until this unlawful and dangerous policy is struck down.”
Under the current rules, the formerly “sensitive” locations — such as churches, other houses of worship, schools, hospitals, shelters, and playgrounds — do not receive the special protections they had under the previous administration.
Yet a memo from DHS at the time instructed ICE agents to still maintain discretion and “balance a variety of interests” including the degree to which enforcement actions should be taken in one of those locations. It tells agents to use “a healthy dose of common sense.”
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin countered the lawsuit’s narrative in a statement provided to CNA, saying that any enforcement in houses of worship would be “extremely rare.”
“Our officers use discretion,” she said. “Officers would need secondary supervisor approval before any action can be taken in locations such as a church or a school.”
U.S. Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin. Credit: U.S. Department of Homeland Security
The lawsuit contends it is not enough that the discretion is “guided only by ‘common sense’” and said the policy “does not require any internal process before agents may carry out enforcement at these locations” and “does not require that exigent circumstances exist before agents enter.”
*Effects of the DHS policy change*
The lawsuit alleges that the policy change causes people to “reasonably fear attending houses of worship” and that some churches represented in the lawsuit “have seen both attendance and financial giving plummet.” It states that this impugns the free exercise of religion and argues that the new policy is not the least restrictive way to further the government’s interest of immigration enforcement.
“Congregations whose faith compels them to worship with open doors and open arms have suddenly had to lock those doors and train their staff how to respond to immigration raids,” the lawsuit contests. “In many places of faith across the United States, the open joy and spiritual restoration of communal worship has been replaced by isolation, concealment, and fear.”
Similar concerns have also been raised by Catholic dioceses. For example, the Diocese of San Bernardino, California, issued a Sunday Mass dispensation for those fearing deportation. Los Angeles Archbishop José Gómez said people are missing Mass amid such fears.
The lawsuit further states that the administration’s policy change has also “led to a growing number of immigration enforcement actions at or near these formerly protected areas.”
Although there are no allegations of targeted raids in churches, the lawsuit cites examples of immigration arrests on or near church properties.
It references two arrests in the San Bernardino Diocese: one in which men were chased into a church parking lot and another in which a man was doing landscaping work. It also references two arrests near churches in Los Angeles and the arrest of a man near a church in Oregon.
“The present threat of surveillance, interrogation, or arrest at their houses of worship means, among other things, fewer congregants participating in communal worship; a diminished ability to provide or participate in religious ministries; and interference with their ability to fulfill their religious mandates, including their obligations to welcome all comers to worship and not to put any person in harm’s way,” the lawsuit states.
McLaughlin, however, disputed these claims, saying that the policy change “gives our law enforcement the ability to do their jobs.”
“We are protecting our schools [and] places of worship by preventing criminal aliens and gang members from exploiting these locations and taking safe haven there because these criminals knew law enforcement couldn’t go inside under the Biden administration,” she said.
Other religious groups have brought similar lawsuits against the DHS following the policy shift.