Christianity Today August 21, 2026 6 min signal 2026-08-21

Federal appeals court upholds ban on ICE arrests at some houses of worship

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Christianity Today

August 20, 2026

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Blake Fagan / AFP via Getty Images

A day after President Donald Trump took office, the Department of Homeland Security released a memo reversing a policy that had discouraged immigration officials from making arrests “in or near so-called ‘sensitive’ areas”—places that include churches, schools, and hospitals.

Concerned about their immigrant members and the threat posed to religious liberty, some religious groups quickly took their objections to the courts but had little recourse in the meantime, as arrests have taken place outside churches.

On Tuesday, the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a ban on immigration enforcement outside some houses of worship while the case moves forward in the lower court.

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The ruling, which guards against indiscriminate immigration enforcement, applies only to the plaintiffs. They include six Quaker meetings, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Georgia, and a Sikh temple in Sacramento, California.

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A district court had issued an order blocking the administration’s new policy in response to the lawsuit, but the Trump administration appealed the injunction. The appeals court’s decision to uphold the district court’s injunction is a blow to the administration, but the ruling did not decide the merits of the case. That remains the job of the district court, and the case may take years to reach a conclusion, according to Jeremy McKinney, an attorney and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Unless the Trump administration tries to speed things up: Lawyers for the president have been quick to appeal lower courts losses to the Supreme Court.

But for now, Christians party to the lawsuit are breathing a sigh of relief.

Paul Baxley, a pastor and executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, in a statement called the ruling a “powerful affirmation” of Baptists’ “steadfast commitment to religious liberty, local church autonomy, and the clear separation of church and state.”

The ruling framed the Trump administration’s policy as a danger to religious liberty and held the challengers were “likely to succeed” under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That law makes the government show a compelling interest and use “the least restrictive means” if it acts in a way that places a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion.

The 2025 policy has caused a drop in attendance at some houses of worship. Some churches have locked their doors, and as another judge noted in a concurrence of the opinion, suffered a “pocketbook injury” as contributions have dropped along with attendance.

“Whether it’s to sit in expectant waiting, to deliver or receive a weekly sermon … communal worship is fundamental to the religious exercise of many,” senior circuit judge Barbara Milano Keenan wrote in the ruling. She added that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents parking outside religious services or arresting congregants was “anathema” to the plaintiffs’ religious exercise.

“It is important for faith communities in the United States to stand up for their rights to worship,” Chris Mohr, general secretary of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, told CT.

Mohr belongs to a Quaker tradition that follows an “unprogrammed” meeting style. There are no pastors or priests. When they gather for religious meetings, they wait in silence for a move of the Holy Spirit. At any point, one of the attendees may speak a message.

“If some of our members are dissuaded from coming to worship because they fear the presence of law enforcement in our house of worship, that hampers the fullness of our ability to worship,” Mohr said.

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In the lawsuit, the Cooperative Baptists also argued the 2025 policy negatively impacted their ability to follow Jesus’ directive in Matthew 25 to welcome the stranger. “In the faces of immigrants and refugees who are fleeing political or religious persecution … Baptists see nothing less than the face of Jesus.”

The ruling held that the administration failed to meet the strict justification required to burden freedom of religion.

“‘Attending religious services’ is ‘at the very heart’ of the ‘guarantee of religious liberty,’” the appeals court held. “If the government is going to impede that guarantee, it must meet the strictest of justifications. With respect to the 2025 policy, it cannot.”

A similar lawsuit filed by 27 Christian and Jewish groups is currently in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, but the judge in that case denied plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction. Earlier this year, another court also blocked enforcement of the 2025 policy for a group of Lutheran, Quaker, and Baptist congregations that had filed a separate lawsuit with similar arguments.

“Religious freedom is not conditional, and it protects us when we gather to worship,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a litigation nonprofit that represented the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a statement. “This decision reaffirms that the Trump-Vance administration cannot force people of faith to abandon their ministries or make people worship under the constant threat of indiscriminate enforcement activities.”

McKinney, who is Methodist, said he hopes Christians, regardless of their political leanings, will consider these kinds of cases through a religious liberty lens:

“The constitutional right to exercise religious liberty applies to all people, regardless of citizenship status.”

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