ICE Blocked From Enforcement Near Some Houses of Worship (1)

A federal judge Friday ordered new restrictions on immigration enforcement efforts around some churches that sued the Trump administration for rescinding prior guidance for raids around sensitive areas like churches and schools.

Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction to protect churchgoers’ religious freedom rights, prohibiting warrantless enforcement actions inside churches and within 100 feet of entrances absent exigent circumstances or supervisory approval.

The lawsuit claimed the government’s grant of discretion to field supervisors to approve enforcement actions at sensitive locations wasn’t adequately tailored to avoid impinging on churchgoers’ constitutional rights.

Saylor said the government went too far in granting that discretion to lower-level officers.

“The prospect that a street-level law-enforcement agent—acting without a judicial warrant and with little or no supervisory control—could conduct a raid during a church service, or lie in wait to interrogate or seize congregants as they seek to enter a church, is profoundly troubling,” Saylor said.

He added, “according to the new policy, agents could conduct a raid, with weapons drawn, at any type of church proceeding—including a regular Sunday service, a wedding, a baptism, a christening, or a funeral—subject only to the exercise of their ‘discretion’ and ‘common sense.’”

Not universal, the order applies to member churches of multiple Lutheran church synods, the American Baptist Churches, the Alliance of Baptists, and Metropolitan Community Churches. Some religious groups that participated in the lawsuit aren’t covered by the injunction because they failed to show they were concretely injured by the Department of Homeland Security’s policy change.

During a September hearing, Saylor had pointed questions about the limits of the policy for the Justice Department lawyer during a hearing earlier this month.

Associations of Lutheran, Quaker, Baptist and other religious communities said in the lawsuit that the new policy has made people fearful to attend church regardless of their immigration status . Church attendance and monetary collections have both fallen, according to the complaint. The lawsuit is one of five filed nationally opposing the ICE policy.

A government’s lawyer defending the policy had argued that the new limits on universal injunctions under the US Supreme Court’s order in Trump v. CASA Inc. close the door on the coalition’s goal to shut down enforcement near churches nationwide.

Skye Perryman of Democracy Forward, which represented the religious groups, said the ruling is the second from a federal court to confirm that the church enforcement policy is unlawful.

“This court order reaffirms that sacred spaces are not staging grounds for fear and intimidation,” Perryman said. “The Trump-Vance administration’s policy of fear and terror is not about immigration enforcement, it is about eroding the core rights of people and the foundational values of our democracy.”

Representatives for the Deparment of Homeland Security weren’t immediately available for comment.

Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Gilbert LLP, and Democracy Forward Foundation represent the churches.

The case is New England Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Am. v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., D. Mass., 4:25-cv-40102, decision on 2/13/26.