US Federal appeals court revives religious groups’ legal challenge to immigration enforcement at churches, synagogues and mosques; what the ruling means for worshippers

Immigration enforcement at churches, synagogues and mosques is back before the courts after a federal appeals court revived a religious freedom lawsuit against the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In January 2025, the department scrapped the sensitive locations policy, which for more than thirty years had limited immigration operations at places of worship, schools and funerals. Twenty-seven Judeo-Christian organisations, representing millions of worshippers, sued under the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. Their congregations serve undocumented immigrants through worship, food pantries, legal advice and job training, now with enforcement left to office-level supervisors’ case-by-case discretion.From strict approval rules to supervisor discretion: what changed for places of worshipThe safeguard dates to 1993, when the government directed immigration authorities to avoid arrests and tightly control investigations at schools, places of worship, funerals and religious ceremonies. According to the appeals court opinion published by Justia, the latest version arrived in 2021 under then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. It told officers to avoid action at or near such places to the fullest extent possible and demanded prior approval from agency headquarters or its delegates. It allowed exceptions only in emergencies such as national security threats, imminent violence, destruction of evidence or hot pursuit of a public safety threat.Acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman replaced it with an instruction to use discretion and common sense. Eleven days later, Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Caleb Vitello rejected fixed rules, leaving office-level supervisors to decide case by case, verbally or in writing. The DHS said in a press release that immigrants it classed as criminals could no longer shelter in schools and churches to avoid arrest.Raids, surveillance and falling attendance: the evidence the faith groups put before the courtThe plaintiffs comprise sixteen national or regional denominational bodies and eleven associations, among them the Union for Reform Judaism, the Latino Christian National Network and the Rabbinical Assembly. Their traditions range from Quakers and Mennonites to Catholics, Evangelicals, Pentecostals and United Methodists. Leaders and congregants filed declarations, and members of all but one plaintiff reported falling attendance at services and community events as worshippers feared enforcement.The court record also lists specific incidents after the rescission: a raid at a church linked to a plaintiff, a raid next door to another, a raid at a church outside the lawsuit, and surveillance at or near three plaintiff-linked churches. The North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church said in a declaration that agents entered a church daycare office looking for a staff member they believed to be undocumented. The Episcopal Church said agents photographed people queuing at a food pantry hosted by a California congregation.Why the appeals court rejected a gun-case test and saw a credible threat to worshippersThe district court refused the groups’ request for a temporary order, known as a preliminary injunction, ruling their fears too speculative. Its reasoning turned on standing, the legal right to sue, which requires a harm that is imminent, linked to the policy and fixable by a court. It borrowed a test from firearms cases that asks whether plaintiffs were singled out for enforcement.Bloomberg Law reported that the Justice Department made a similar argument on appeal, saying the groups needed specific information that a particular church was about to be raided. Two judges appeared sceptical at oral argument in early February, with one asking how churches could possibly have such insider knowledge of upcoming operations.Circuit Judge Florence Pan, joined by Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins, wrote for the appeals court that the firearms test does not suit a challenge to an agency policy that burdens religious expression. Applying the Supreme Court’s credible threat standard instead, she wrote that the government had not disavowed enforcement at such places. The government’s own statements said agents believed the rescission would free them to pursue more undocumented immigrants, and operations had begun near plaintiffs’ congregations as a direct result of the change. Reinstating the old guidance, she wrote, need only prevent a single operation at a single congregation. A judicial warrant requirement would force agents to show a judge probable cause, slowing and deterring operations.Judge Rao’s dissent: The argument that restoring the old memo would not change enforcementCircuit Judge Neomi Rao argued that the 2021 guidance never limited the government’s legal authority or enforcement discretion, so predicting its effect is speculation. She described its rescission as one relatively minor part of a broader policy of increasing immigration enforcement. The dissent noted that the district court found only one enforcement action at the hundreds of member congregations, and three instances at or near any place of worship nationwide in the first ten weeks. It added that courts cannot direct how the executive branch prioritises enforcement. It also said a judicial warrant requirement would exceed judicial powers and is barred by a federal law limiting lower courts’ power to restrain parts of the immigration code.Pan answered that the dissent rested on a mistaken belief that the old memo was non-binding. Courts generally assume agencies follow their announced policies, she wrote, and otherwise the administration would not have needed to rescind it. The majority added that the lawsuit was filed less than three weeks after the rescission, so even a few incidents point to increased enforcement.What happens next as the case returns to the district court, and what the ruling leaves openThe split decision, handed down on 20 October 2026, reverses the denial of the temporary order and sends the motion back to the district court for further consideration. It does not decide whether the policy is lawful. The panel rested on a single theory of harm, the threat of immigration enforcement at congregations. It left the groups’ claims about falling attendance, moral dilemmas and security costs undecided. It also declined to say whether a judicial warrant requirement is permissible, because neither side had argued that point.Maryland and Massachusetts cases test the same policy as scrutiny of immigration tactics growsBloomberg Law reported that the ruling arrives amid heightened scrutiny of ICE tactics. Two Americans were fatally shot in Minnesota during an enforcement surge, and congressional gridlock over Democrats’ demands to rein in the agency caused a partial government shutdown and a funding lapse for the DHS earlier this year. Kelsi Brown Corkran of Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, lead counsel for the religious associations, told the publication by email that the decision was “an important victory for the millions of people of faith” in the coalition. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.Other organisations are challenging the same change in federal courts in Maryland and Massachusetts. In August, six months after oral argument in the Washington case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a ruling barring federal immigration operations at certain houses of worship. That case was brought by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, and the order requires the DHS to revert to the 2021 guidance at those plaintiffs’ houses of worship. In February, a Massachusetts federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement, absent emergencies, in or around certain houses of worship that sued, and that case is pending on appeal. The dissent noted that courts hearing similar cases have found plaintiffs likely to succeed on the merits yet refused to order judicial warrants.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.