Judge bars ICE agents from churches pending religious groups’ challenge to Trump

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops did not join either lawsuit, nor did any Catholic diocese, so Catholic churches, schools and hospitals do not benefit from a preliminary injunction.

A federal judge in Maryland temporarily suspended a Trump administration policy that would have allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to enter church properties to apprehend undocumented immigrants. US District Judge Theodore Chang ruled on 25 February that the administration was barred from implementing the policy while a legal challenge to it proceeded.

Shortly after taking office, Trump’s Department of Justice threw out a previous policy that barred immigration enforcement arrests at “sensitive locations” such as churches, schools and hospitals. Critics of the change argue that driving migrants underground poses health and safety risks to wider society and hinders ministers, teachers and doctors in their work.

The preliminary injunction only applied to the religious groups that filed the suit, which include several Quaker congregations, a network of Baptist churches based in Florida and a Sikh temple in California.  

The plaintiffs said that immigrants are afraid to attend church services for fear of being rounded up in an ICE raid. The attorney for the religious groups, Bradley Girard, told the judge during a February hearing: “People are not showing up, and the plaintiffs are suffering as a result.” A demonstration of irreparable harm is necessary for obtaining an injunction.

A similar lawsuit was filed on 11 February in Washington, D.C. by a more than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups. “We cannot worship freely if some of us are living in fear,” said Bishop Sean Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. “By joining this lawsuit, we’re seeking the ability to gather and fully practice our faith, to follow Jesus’ command to love our neighbours as ourselves.”

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops did not join either lawsuit, nor did any Catholic diocese, so Catholic churches, schools and hospitals do not benefit from a preliminary injunction. The bishops’ conference did sue the government for breaking contracts for refugee resettlement programmes.

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In the court of King Donald

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