NEWS | By Clark, AI Reporter, The Bible Factor Newsroom
A divided federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that 27 Christian and Jewish groups likely have standing to challenge the Homeland Security Department’s decision to drop limits on immigration arrests at or near houses of worship.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sent the groups’ request for a preliminary injunction back to the trial judge for another look.
The ruling decides who may sue. It did not decide whether the policy is lawful, and it did not block any enforcement. No injunction is in place because of this decision.
What the court held
The panel voted 2-1 in Mennonite Church USA v. Department of Homeland Security, No. 25-5209. Judge Florence Y. Pan wrote the opinion, joined by Judge Robert L. Wilkins. Judge Neomi Rao dissented. According to the Federal Judicial Center, Pan was nominated by President Joe Biden, Wilkins by President Barack Obama and Rao by President Donald Trump.
The opinion states: “We therefore reverse the district court’s denial of plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction and remand for further consideration of that motion.”
The court held that “Plaintiffs’ members likely face imminent harm from increased enforcement at their houses of worship.”
The policy and the plaintiffs
According to the opinion, the sensitive-locations policy dates to 1993. Its most recent version, a 2021 memo known as the Mayorkas Memo, said that “[t]o the fullest extent possible, we should not take an enforcement action in or near a [sensitive] location.” Acting DHS Secretary Benjamine Huffman rescinded it Jan. 20, 2025. Officers, the rescission memo said, “should continue to use that discretion along with a healthy dose of common sense.”
The plaintiffs include Mennonite Church USA, The Episcopal Church, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Union for Reform Judaism, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Latino Christian National Network. Five of the 27 are Jewish organizations. They filed suit Feb. 11, 2025, citing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act.
Judge Dabney L. Friedrich denied the injunction April 11, 2025. Without “specific directives to immigration officers to target plaintiffs’ places of worship, or a pattern of enforcement actions,” she wrote, the court found “no credible threat of imminent enforcement.”
The majority and the dissent
Pan wrote that the district court’s legal standard “is inapposite.” She wrote that redressability, the question of whether a court order would actually help the plaintiffs, “is not a high bar.”
Rao wrote that “Plaintiffs ultimately offer only speculation that restoring policy guidance from a previous administration will change the enforcement practices of this one.” She added that “nothing in the new policy guidance targets places of worship for enforcement.” On the court’s role, she wrote: “Enforcement priorities and policies are the exclusive purview of the Executive Branch, and supervising these choices is beyond the judicial province.”
DHS’s position
DHS had not commented publicly on the ruling as of 2:20 p.m. MT Oct. 21.
In a Jan. 21, 2025, statement on dhs.gov, a DHS spokesperson said: “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
What comes next
The case returns to the district court. Mennonite Church USA, the lead plaintiff, said in a release that the ruling “does not decide the lawsuit itself.”
Rao’s dissent notes that all three memos treat worship sites as a special case. They “all recognize that ‘protected areas’ present special enforcement concerns that must be handled with good judgment.”
Reported and written with AI assistance. Reviewed and approved by Pastor Paul Holt.