Churches Sue ICE Over Worship Arrests: Congregations Go Underground

Legal Battle Over Immigration Enforcement in Places of Worship

A growing number of Christian denominations are taking legal action against the Trump administration, aiming to halt immigration enforcement activities within churches. The lawsuit involves Baptist, Lutheran, and Quaker groups who claim that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is undermining First Amendment protections and violating religious freedoms. These groups have filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the policy from being implemented.

After Donald Trump took office, his administration revoked a previous policy by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that had prevented enforcement actions in sensitive locations such as places of worship, schools, and hospitals. This change has led to several incidents where federal agents have conducted arrests in or near religious sites.

In the past month alone, federal agents have reportedly seized a man in front of a church, pointed a rifle at a pastor, and detained a grandfather dropping off his granddaughter at a church school in Los Angeles. Additionally, agents have chased several men into church parking lots and arrested parishioners at churches across southern California, according to church leaders.

The lawsuit states that these actions have caused widespread fear among people, regardless of their immigration status, leading them to avoid attending houses of worship. The sense of community and spiritual restoration that once characterized these gatherings has been replaced with isolation, concealment, and fear. As a result, attendance and donations have significantly declined, and many congregations have gone underground to protect their members, avoiding in-person meetings that are central to their faith.

Baptisms are now held in private, and churches have stopped promoting immigrant-focused ministries. Some houses of worship have even had to lock their doors and train staff on how to respond to immigration raids, according to the complaint.

This lawsuit marks at least the fourth instance in which faith leaders have challenged ICE policies within the last six months. In February, over two dozen religious groups filed a similar lawsuit, which eventually led to a partial restraining order blocking ICE from conducting enforcement actions in roughly 1,700 places of worship across 35 states and Washington, D.C.

However, in April, a judge appointed by Trump ruled in favor of the administration in a similar case brought by Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans. Judge Dabney Friedrich argued that drops in church attendance could not be definitively linked to ICE actions, suggesting that people might be staying home to avoid ICE anywhere in their neighborhoods rather than specifically at places of worship.

As a leader in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s California synod, Bishop Brenda Bos expressed concern about the loss of basic rights to provide care and compassion. She emphasized that places of worship are no longer safe, and that worship services, educational events, and social services have all been negatively impacted by the removal of sensitive space protections.

Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin defended the administration's stance, stating that they are protecting places of worship by preventing criminal aliens and gang members from exploiting these locations. She claimed that under the Biden administration, law enforcement was unable to enter these spaces, allowing criminals to take refuge there.

The legal challenges come at a time when Christian leadership across the country, including the Vatican, is grappling with the consequences of the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration policies. With a directive to make at least 3,000 daily arrests, ICE received record-breaking funding from Congress, expanding its budget to be larger than most countries’ militaries.

In Miami, Archbishop Thomas Wenski condemned public officials for praising "Alligator Alcatraz," while San Bernardino Bishop Alberto Rojas issued a rare decree this month excusing parishioners from attending mass due to genuine fear of immigration raids. Pope Leo XIV, an American-born pope whose papacy began less than four months into Trump’s presidency, previously criticized the administration’s immigration policies and rhetoric.

Washington, D.C. Cardinal Robert McElroy also criticized the administration’s agenda of “mass, indiscriminate deportation of men and women and children and families,” calling it cruel and arbitrary. In Los Angeles, Archbishop Jose Gomez accused the administration of having “no immigration policy beyond the stated goal of deporting thousands of people each day.”

“This is not policy, it is punishment, and it can only result in cruel and arbitrary outcomes,” wrote the bishop, who is also a naturalized U.S. citizen from Mexico. He noted that stories of innocent fathers and mothers being wrongly deported, with no recourse to appeal, are already emerging.