A federal judge on Monday blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for Quakers and a handful of other religious groups, the Associated Press reports. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out. The preliminary injunction from the Maryland-based judge only applies to this suit's plaintiffs, which also include a Georgia-based network of Baptist churches and a Sikh temple in California. The Trump administration had changed Department of Homeland Security policies limiting where migrant arrests could happen; the policy change said field agents using “common sense” and “discretion” can conduct immigration enforcement operations at houses of worship without a supervisor’s approval. Plaintiffs’ attorneys argue that the new DHS directive departs from the government’s 30-year-old policy against staging immigration enforcement operations in “protected areas” or “sensitive locations.”
A coalition of Quaker meetings from states including Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia sued DHS and its secretary, Kristi Noem, on Jan. 27, less than a week after the new policy was announced.
Many immigrants are afraid to attend religious services while the government enforces the new rule, lawyers for the congregations said in a court filing. “It’s a fear that people are experiencing across the county,” plaintiffs’ attorney Bradley Girard told the judge during a February hearing. “People are not showing up, and the plaintiffs are suffering as a result.” More than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans have also filed a similar but separate lawsuit in Washington, D.C. Plaintiffs in the Maryland case are represented by the Democracy Forward Foundation, whose lawyers asked the judge to block DHS enforcement of the policy on a nationwide basis. “DHS’s new policy gives it the authority to enter any house of worship across the country, no matter its religious beliefs,” the attorneys wrote.
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