A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit filed by FaithWorks and more than two dozen other religious organizations to prevent immigration enforcement actions in houses of worship and other sensitive locations.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia released a divided opinion Oct. 20 concluding plaintiffs offered sufficient proof their congregations and ministries faced imminent threats from immigration agents and therefore could move ahead with Mennonite Church USA, et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The action stems from the Trump administration’s January 2025 decision to roll back a decades-old sensitive locations policy directing immigration agents as much as possible from operating on the properties of schools, places of worship and hospitals. The revised policy removes those limits and simply asks agents to “use their discretion along with a healthy dose of common sense” when operating at or near sensitive locations like churches.
The lawsuit contends the new approach violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion and the Administrative Procedures Act which governs the federal government’s rule-making processes.
Dabney Friedrich
In April, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich denied the preliminary injunction sought by the faith-based groups, concluding they lacked standing to bring the lawsuit and the negative consequences anticipated from the updated policy had occurred in insufficient numbers.
But judges Florence Pan and Robert Wilkins ruled the plaintiffs have standing to proceed by representing “millions of worshippers, including Baptists, Brethren, Catholics, Conservative Jews, Episcopalians, Evangelicals, Mennonites, Quakers, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Reconstructionist Jews, Reform Jews, Unitarian Universalists, United Methodists, and Zion Methodists.”
In addition to concerns about disruptions and fears caused by immigration raids, the litigants also demonstrated harms to ministries nationwide, the majority wrote. “In their complaint, every plaintiff alleges that at least one of its member congregations provides support to undocumented immigrants — some of whom are members of the congregations, and others of whom benefit from their charitable work.”
The 2-1 ruling also took into account incidents of federal agents spying on congregations and other controversial enforcement actions that have occurred since the lawsuit was filed in February.
“Given the ‘credible threat’ of impending enforcement activity at or near plaintiffs’ members’ premises, plaintiffs ‘should not be required to await and undergo (further enforcement) as the sole means of seeking relief,’” the majority wrote, citing relevant case law.
“Plaintiffs’ members likely face imminent harm from increased enforcement at their houses of worship; that harm is traceable to the new enforcement policy; and the relief requested will likely redress their injury, at least in part.”
But in her dissent, Judge Neomi Rao argued that even restoring the policy to its previous form would not redress plaintiffs’ alleged harms: “The memo simply discouraged immigration enforcement in protected areas but imposed no actual restriction on enforcement authority or discretion. Enforcement priorities and policies are the exclusive purview of the executive branch, and supervising these choices is beyond the judicial province.”
The appellate decision reversed Friedrich’s ruling and remands the case back to the district court where plaintiffs can again seek a temporary restraining order while the litigation continues.
Stephen Reeves, executive director of FaithWorks (formerly Fellowship Southwest), expressed gratitude for the ruling and said the ministry will continue to defend the right for people to serve their neighbors without fear from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We hope this decision will result in an injunction so that our immigrant neighbors will know their faith community is free from the threat of ICE enforcement and that our partner churches can continue exercising their faith by serving neighbors regardless of immigration status,” he said. “While this injunction would not prevent enforcement in most places, it would guarantee that houses of worship are truly sanctuaries. It’s the very least we can offer them: a refuge in times of trouble.”
Nothing less than freedom of religion is at stake in the case, said Bishop Thomas Bickerton, leader of the New York and New England conferences of the United Methodist Church.
“It’s inherent in our Wesleyan DNA to fight for justice for those that are marginalized and those that are oppressed, and this is an accentuated case,” he said.
Bickerton also cited the long history of New York’s Methodist congregations welcoming immigrants into membership. “They are our people, and we’re standing with them at all costs.”
The Unitarian Universalist Association, also a plaintiff, said faith groups have to be diligence given the Trump administration’s disregard for individual rights and sacred spaces.
“As the threats to our sanctuaries — including documented instances of surveillance of UU congregations — and religious practices intensify, we will continue our practice of faithful dissent against such oppression, and we look forward to being a part of the next step of the legal process.”
The Mennonite Church USA cautioned members that the ruling is not victory in the lawsuit itself, but an important moment in the struggle for the right to serve those targeted by the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.
“We’re asking the government to not interfere with our right to practice our faith freely, which is protected by the Constitution,” said Michael Danner, associate executive director for church vitality in Mennonite Church USA and executive director for the Mennonite Education Agency. The lawsuits asks the federal government “to enforce laws in ways that don’t stop us from following Jesus’ command to love our neighbors.”
Mennonite Church v. DHS is one of multiple lawsuits filed against the administration’s focus on houses of worship for immigration enforcement raids.
In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a lower court’s injunction blocking DHS operations on the sites of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and other plaintiffs’ properties in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends v. DHS. A district court in Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction in February for American Baptist Churches USA, the Alliance of Baptists and other faith groups in New England Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America v. DHS.
However, the decisions, which apply only to the groups that filed the lawsuits, have not discouraged DHS and ICE from conducting immigration operations near and on plaintiffs’ church properties. In August, University Baptist Church in Minneapolis learned that ICE agents had entered its facilities at least four times, including in May, to secretly record conversations between worshipers. The congregation is affiliated with the Alliance and ABCUSA, both plaintiffs in New England Synod.
The intrusions possibly violated the restraining order in that case and a contempt-of-court motion was filed in response to complaints of “egregious violations of the preliminary injunction, including deploying an undercover ICE agent into one of plaintiffs’ protected churches to surveil and record people inside.”
The spying at UBC and other churches was part of DHS efforts to crack down on activists and demonstrators opposed to ICE operations in Minnesota.