A federal judge is halting an updated immigration policy, which he says likely violates religious liberty rights. In a 62-page opinion published Friday, Judge Dennis Saylor IV of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction against a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) directive authorizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to conduct immigration raids at or inside churches.

At issue is a January 2025 DHS policy eliminating previous bars against conducting immigration-related searches, interrogations, and arrests at “sensitive locations,” including churches, hospitals, schools, and the like. A coalition of churches filed a lawsuit, challenging the directive as a violation of the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Previously, DHS policy had only permitted immigration raids at churches in extreme cases and required prior approval from ICE headquarters. The 2025 policy shift permitted ICE personnel to conduct immigration operations at churches on the basis of their own “discretion” and “common sense.”

“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 wrote. He hypothesized that, under the 2025 policy, ICE agents could conduct raids “with weapons drawn” during church services, baptisms, weddings, and other religious ceremonies. “It hardly requires mentioning that freedom of religion is both a core American value and a basic liberty protected by the First Amendment and laws of the United States,” the judge continued. “If government interference with those freedoms is ever justifiable, it is only in relatively extreme circumstances, such as an immediate threat to public safety. The routine enforcement of the immigration laws does not involve such a threat, and cannot justify the harm to religious freedom posed by the new policy.”

While he acknowledged that “the presence of millions of illegal immigrants within the borders of the United States justifies a substantial government response,” such as President Donald Trump’s promised campaign of deportations, Saylor warned that no such response could infringe on core rights recognized by the American people for 250 years and enumerated in the U.S. Constitution. However, the judge did author an exemption to his injunction, allowing ICE agents to enter churches and make arrests equipped with either an administrative or judicial warrant. Saylor determined that the DHS policy violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and blocked it on those grounds, without reaching the question of whether or not the policy abridged First Amendment free association rights.

Since the new DHS policy was promulgated, there have been no recorded instances of ICE or other federal immigration enforcement agents conducting immigration enforcement operations inside churches, although there have been seven incidents which have occurred on church property. In California in June, an individual was temporarily detained in a church parking lot, another was detained in a church parking lot after leading ICE agents there in his car, and others led ICE to a church parking lot in a foot chase. Last month, an illegal immigrant was arrested in a church parking lot in Florida, two others were detained while painting the exterior of a church in California, and agents arrested a known, previously-deported illegal immigrant during an event on church property in the Los Angeles area. Earlier this week, two illegal immigrants were identified while on their way to church and were arrested in the parking lot outside the church.

In comments to The Washington Stand, Center for Immigration Studies resident fellow in law and policy Andrew R. Arthur, a former immigration judge, observed, “ICE doesn’t do enforcement operations in houses of worship today, unless a fugitive runs into a church or the church is harboring an alien convicted of a serious criminal offense, or who is facing charge for such an offense.” He described Saylor’s injunction as “consistent with a number of district court orders that have attempted to impede Trump II immigration enforcement.” Arthur added, “That’s why we have appellate-level circuit courts, but in any event the current policy is sensible and should be upheld.”