U.S. Administration Facing Lawsuits Over ICE Raids at Churches

The Banner has a subscription to republish articles from Religion News Service. This story by Jack Jenkins, was published July 28, 2025 on religionnews.com. It has been edited for length and Banner style. The Banner added the last three paragraphs to provide context for the Christian Reformed Church.

A group of Christian denominations and organizations filed a lawsuit on July 28 against the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem over the decision to rescind a policy discouraging Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at houses of worship, the fourth such suit to be brought on the question of arrests made at so-called “sensitive locations.”

In the past, immigration enforcement actions at churches were discouraged by a 2011 internal government memo that advised against raids at sensitive locations, such as houses of worship, schools and hospitals. But President Donald Trump did away with the policy shortly after taking office, which faith groups argue in their suit “is not just harmful and un-American” but also “violates federal law,” citing both freedom of assembly guaranteed under the First Amendment as well as rights outlined by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.

“For Plaintiffs and their members, the present threat of surveillance, interrogation, or arrest at their houses of worship means, among other things, fewer congregants participating in communal worship; a diminished ability to provide or participate in religious ministries; and interference with their ability to fulfill their religious mandates, including their obligations to welcome all comers to worship and not to put any person in harm’s way,” the complaint reads.

The plaintiffs include five regional synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and three regional Quaker groups. Three Christian denominations are also listed: American Baptist Churches USA, Alliance of Baptists and Metropolitan Community Churches. They are represented by legal groups Democracy Forward, Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and the Washington law firm Gilbert LLP.

“As people of faith, we cannot abide losing the basic right to provide care and compassion,” Bishop Brenda Bos of the ELCA’s Southwest California Synod said in a statement. “Not only are our spaces no longer guaranteed safety, but our worship services, educational events, and social services have all been harmed by the rescission of sensitive space protection. Our call is to love our neighbor, and we have been denied the ability to live out that call.”

Asked about the lawsuit, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Religion News Service in a statement: “We are protecting our schools, places of worship by preventing criminal aliens and gang members from exploiting these locations and taking safe haven there because these criminals knew law enforcement couldn’t go inside under the Biden Administration.”

DHS did not immediately respond to a followup question asking to specify an example of a gang member taking refuge in a church under the previous administration, but the initial statement insisted raids on sensitive locations require special protocols before being carried out.

“Officers would need secondary supervisor approval before any action can be taken in locations such as a church or a school,” McLaughlin said in the statement, adding, “We expect these to be extremely rare.”

In a separate interview with RNS, Bos rejected McLaughlin’s characterization of those targeted by recent immigration enforcement actions, which the government’s own data has indicated are often—and in some cases, mostly—people without criminal convictions.

“What we’re looking at is folks that have been deeply embedded in the communities and in their congregations, real people of faith and service who are being harmed,” Bos said.

The July 28 complaint, which describes federal agents detaining a man in the parking lot of a Disciples of Christ church in Downey, Calif.; the detainment of people at two churches in the Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino, including a man who was doing landscaping for one of the churches; and at least one incident on a sidewalk outside a Catholic church in Downey, joins at least three other separate lawsuits filed by faith groups alone or with other plaintiffs on roughly the same grounds since Trump took office. The plaintiffs in the cases include a broad spectrum of religious organizations, from entire denominations, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Episcopal Church USA and the Union for Reform Judaism, to an individual Catholic parish and a Sikh temple in California.

The administration is also facing at least two other lawsuits related to its almost complete ban on refugees and its cancellation of contracts with faith-based groups that resettle refugees for the federal government. One suit was filed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and another by a trio of religious organizations that work with refugees, HIAS, Church World Service, and Lutheran Community Services Northwest.

Related: New U.S. Refugee Policies Impact CRC Congregations (March 25, 2025); Prayer and Call to Action on Immigration (Feb. 5, 2025)

Congregations of the Christian Reformed Church in North America that include Latino Americans and immigrants to the U.S. have raised the concern of the fear of immigration raids to CRCNA leadership. “All our Latino congregations have witnessed dramatic decreases in attendance, which has consequently resulted in severe reductions in financial support. Families who have been faithful members of our churches for years are now afraid to leave their homes, even to worship God in community. The fear is so pervasive that it is fundamentally undermining the basic Christian practice of gathering for fellowship and worship,” wrote Harold Caicedo, a pastor in Fontana, Calif., in a letter directed to CRCNA general secretary Zachary King and posted on the denomination’s Network on July 14.

King and other senior leaders followed up with a meeting with Caicedo and other members of the CRCNA’s Consejo Latino. They also approached other groups within the CRC affected by these realities. In response, the CRCNA is inviting all CRC congregations to have a time of prayer during their Sunday worship Sept. 7 and to join a virtual prayer vigil during the evening of Sept. 10. “Members of CRC congregations will share stories and prayer requests from their local contexts, and leaders will spend time in prayer with them,” CRC communications wrote in an Aug. 6 article about Caicedo’s letter and the denominational follow up.

The article reminds “that the CRCNA position on immigration and migration recognizes the importance of respecting laws and government regulation of national borders, but also encourages governments to treat immigrants and migrants with justice, dignity, and respect.” It encourages people “interested in participating in advocacy around this topic” to connect with Thrive, the denomination’s congregational equipping ministry, for “meaningful opportunities to take action, rooted in a spirit of justice, compassion, and Christian witness.”

c. 2025 Religion News Service