Judge grants injunction barring immigration arrests at some houses of worship

(CN) — A federal judge in Maryland on Monday granted a temporary injunction barring U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents from arresting undocumented immigrants at houses of worship belonging to several religious organizations.

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang wrote in a 59-page opinion that the agency’s recent decision to suspend rules limiting immigration enforcement actions near houses of worship threatened the plaintiffs’ — which include Quakers, Sikhs, and Cooperative Baptists — right to exercise their religious freedom.

The Barack Obama appointee and former deputy general counsel for HSI ordered the department to continue following a 2021 policy that requires agents to avoid arrests at or near houses of worship “to the fullest extent possible” and placing limitations on the circumstances when enforcement can occur.

“Immigration enforcement actions at plaintiffs’ places of worship pursuant to the 2025 policy would impose substantial pressure on plaintiffs to modify their behavior by preventing them from worshipping with a large and more diverse group of congregants and thereby inhibiting their exercise of central facets of their respective religions,” Chuang wrote.

The judge declined to issue a nationwide injunction, instead limiting the ruling to the churches, meetinghouses and gurdwaras operated by the plaintiffs, including Quaker societies in Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York.

The religious groups are challenging a Jan. 20 memorandum from Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamine C. Huffman, which rescinded long-standing policies around immigration enforcement at or near so-called “protected areas,” including houses of worship, hospitals and schools.

Huffman said that while officers should use a “healthy dose of common sense” when deciding whether to conduct operations at or near protected areas, he believed it was not necessary for the department head to create “bright line rules” regarding where immigration laws could be enforced.

“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the department said in a press release announcing the memorandum.

Eight religious groups filed suit a week later in the U.S. District Court of Maryland and asked the court to issue a temporary injunction barring enforcement of the new policy until the case was resolved.

The groups argue the threat of arrest or harassment by federal agents has made some members fearful of attending worship services, infringing on their right to religious liberty. The Quakers, formerly known as the Religious Society of Friends, further claim that the presence of armed law enforcement officers near meetinghouses violates their pacifist beliefs.

“Allowing armed government agents wearing ICE-emblazoned jackets to park outside a religious service and monitor who enters or to interrupt the service and drag a congregant out during the middle of worship is anathema to plaintiffs’ religious exercise,” they argue in their brief.

The department countered in an opposing brief that the harm alleged by the religious groups was speculative and outweighed by the public’s interest in the enforcement of immigration laws.

Chuang sided with the plaintiffs in Monday’s decision. He observed that the Sikh Temple of Sacramento — which estimates that at least half of its congregants were immigrants, undocumented or otherwise — reported a decline in attendance at worship services since the department changed its policy.

“Such reductions in attendance significantly affect plaintiffs’ expressive association because plaintiffs’ beliefs require communal worship and activities,” the judge wrote.

The plaintiffs asked for a national injunction to protect houses of worship from immigration actions, but the judge determined it was unjustified at this stage of litigation.

Several other religious groups are challenging the policy in a separate lawsuit pending in the U.S. District Court in Washington.

Follow @SteveGarrisonPC