More than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups have filed a federal lawsuit over the Trump administration’s decision to overturn a long-standing policy that broadly restricted agents from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) from making arrests at churches and other “sensitive locations,” The Washington Post reports. The case, filed Tuesday in the District of Columbia by 27 religious groups representing millions of Americans, argued that the move forces congregations “to violate their religious duty to serve and protect their immigrant neighbors” and has affected attendance for worship and social services “due to fear of immigration enforcement action.”
The case is the second filed by religious groups since the policy was issued; the first, filed last week in federal court in Maryland, was originally brought by five Quaker congregations and later joined by other groups including the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and a Sikh temple. On President Donald Trump’s first day in office, the Department of Homeland Security issued a directive urging ICE officers to more broadly use their discretion. “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” a department spokesperson said in a statement at the time, without providing any evidence of such incidents. For decades, the lawsuit said, the federal government had a general policy of not conducting immigration enforcement operations in “sensitive locations” or “protected areas,” with immigration officials only carrying out arrests or raids at or near places of worship “under exigent circumstances or with prior written, high-level supervisory approval.”