By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday refused to block immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations at houses of worship in a lawsuit filed by religious groups over a new policy adopted by the Trump administration.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich in Washington handed down the ruling in a lawsuit filed by more than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans.
The judge found that there have been only a handful of such enforcement actions and the faiths had not shown the kind of legal harm that would justify a preliminary injunction.
“At least at this juncture and on this record, the plaintiffs have not made the requisite showing of a ‘credible threat’ of enforcement,” wrote Friedrich, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term. “Nor does the present record show that places of worship are being singled out as special targets.”
On Jan. 20, his first day back in office, Trump’s Republican administration rescinded a Department of Homeland Security policy limiting where migrant arrests could happen. Its new policy said field agents using “common sense” and “discretion” can conduct immigration enforcement operations at houses of worship without a supervisor’s approval.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys claimed the new Homeland Security directive departs from the government’s 30-year-old policy against staging immigration enforcement operations in “protected areas” or “sensitive locations.”
In February, a federal judge in Maryland ruled against the Trump administration in a similar case brought by a coalition of Quakers and other religious groups. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chang’s order in that case was limited to those plaintiffs.
A judge in Colorado sided with the administration in another lawsuit over the reversal of a similar policy that had limited immigration arrests at schools.
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