Trump DHS’s own boast used against it as court revives fight over ICE at churches

The Trump administration’s own promises to expand immigration enforcement helped shred its position Tuesday as a federal appeals court revived religious groups’ challenge to allowing ICE operations at houses of worship.

In a 2-1 ruling, the D.C. Circuit found that 27 Christian and Jewish organizations likely have standing to sue over the rollback of longstanding protections.

“If the Mayorkas Memo had as little effect as the dissent posits, the Administration would have had no need to rescind it in order to effectuate its new and more aggressive approach to immigration enforcement,” D.C. Circuit Judge Florence Pan wrote.

The 50-page ruling does not stop immigration agents from operating at houses of worship. But it gives religious groups another chance to persuade a lower court to restore protections against those operations while the lawsuit proceeds.

The dispute began after the Trump administration scrapped a policy directing immigration agents to generally avoid churches, synagogues and other sensitive locations. The administration instead told agents to use discretion and “common sense.”

Since then, some congregations have moved services underground, and religious groups in a separate case have accused DHS of an undercover operation inside a church protected by a court order.

Pan, a Biden appointee, pointed to the government’s stated intentions. The court repeatedly cited a January 2025 DHS press release noting that agents “believe that rescinding the Mayorkas [Memo] is going to free them up to go after more illegal immigrants.”

Far from disavowing enforcement at houses of worship, Pan wrote, the government “announced a plan to ramp up enforcement, and that initiative has already begun.”

Pan, joined by Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, also rebuked dissenting D.C. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao’s argument that restoring the protections would not necessarily reduce enforcement.

“According to the dissent, a policy that presumptively prohibits enforcement activity at houses of worship is not likely to affect enforcement activity at houses of worship,” Pan wrote. “That contention is unsupportable.”

“Instead, it announced a plan to ramp up enforcement, and that initiative has already begun,” she wrote.

Rao, a Trump appointee, countered that the groups offered “only speculation” that restoring the guidance would change enforcement practices.

“Enforcement priorities and policies are the exclusive purview of the Executive Branch, and supervising these choices is beyond the judicial province,” the judge wrote.

The ruling follows a Fourth Circuit decision in August that upheld an order requiring DHS to restore the old protections for the houses of worship in a parallel case.