More than 5,000 churches have publicly declared themselves to be sanctuaries, immune from the most aggressive of ICE’s immigration enforcement.
The churches are part of a lawsuit that challenged the Trump administration’s rollback of Biden-era protections that had put houses of worship and other “sensitive locations” largely off-limits for ICE to make arrests.
Some religious organizations went to court and won a ruling keeping the Biden restrictions in place for them — and they have now submitted a list of the specific churches that are covered by the decision.
Under the judge’s order, Homeland Security agents and officers cannot make a warrantless arrest at the churches unless there is an immediate threat to safety or they have prior approval from their agency’s headquarters.
And they cannot conduct enforcement within 100 feet of the churches unless there’s a threat to safety or they have prior approval from agency headquarters in Washington.
The ruling applies to both U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, DHS’ two main enforcement agencies.
The Washington Times has sought comment from DHS for this story.
The churches had asked U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV, a George W. Bush appointee, to keep their identities from being released to the public for fear of retaliation.
But Judge Saylor rejected that request, saying the churches are public and their locations are already available.
The list spans 5,320 different churches.
Some are storefront operations, and some don’t have their own buildings but rent space from other churches.
Others, however, are major complexes, such as First United Church in Bloomington, Indiana, which claimed parking lots, a playground, a courtyard, a pavilion and a memorial garden as also protected; and Atonement Lutheran Church in Muskego, Wisconsin, which asked DHS to stay out of its main church, garage, patio, outdoor amphitheater and memorial garden.
In New Hampshire, Lutheran Outdoor Ministries of New England listed its campground, cabins, playground and conference center as protected.
Several churches also claimed associated daycares and preschools.
Jessica Vaughan, who tracks sanctuary policies for the Center for Immigration Studies, said the situation is unlikely to make much of a dent in ICE’s actual operations.
“Most of their work is done in jails or in carefully planned fugitive operations. They’re not patrolling the streets or looking to arrest people on their way to church or who are attending church,” she said.
She said the main reason ICE would be tracking someone on church property is if they had previously identified the person as a criminal alien and were in pursuit. Such cases could well fall under Judge Saylor’s exception for exigent circumstances.
For the churches, signing up as sanctuaries is symbolic.
“They want to signal that they’re trying to protect people in their congregations, but more than likely those are not going to be people that ICE is chasing,” she said.
The churches that signed up as sanctuaries are part of the American Baptist Churches USA, the Alliance of Baptists, and the Metropolitan Community Churches. In addition, they also include the New England, Greater Milwaukee, Southwest California, Southwest Texas and Sierra Pacific Synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
They all convinced the court that their congregations had dwindled because of the fear of ICE.
Several Quaker societies had also sued, but Judge Saylor decided they didn’t have legal standing because they didn’t prove ICE’s enforcement posture had harmed them.
How ICE treats so-called sensitive locations has long been an issue.
Under former Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security limited enforcement around a massive list of locations, including churches, schools, playgrounds, clinics and “community organizations.”
Officers could make arrests only if they had prior approval from a supervisor.
ICE officers said in practice, approval was rare and the order put large areas off-limits, hindering arrests of some criminal migrants.
The Trump administration revoked Mr. Mayorkas’ policy, returning discretion to officers.
Several lawsuits have challenged the rollback and have met with mixed success.
Religious organizations have had luck getting carveouts, in both Judge Saylor’s ruling and a case out of Maryland.
But school systems have had worse luck, seeing their lawsuits rebuffed by federal courts.
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