As previously reported, in February a Massachusetts federal district court issued a preliminary injunction barring immigration officials from enforcing against plaintiffs in the case a new policy that allows ICE agents to conduct arrests, searches, or interrogations in or near churches and other houses of worship at the agents' own discretion. Now in New England Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America v. Department of Homeland Security, (D MA, filed8/20/2026), plaintiffs filed a motion (full text) asking the court to hold DHS in contempt for violating the injunction. The motion alleges in part:
DHS documents filed last week in an ongoing criminal proceeding, United States v. Sant, No. 26-cr-115 (D. Minn.), reveal that Defendants have repeatedly violated the preliminary injunction at University Baptist Church in Minneapolis, including by sending an undercover ICE agent into the church itself in order to spy on those inside....
DHS’s surveillance outside the church on April 11, April 19, and June 11 violates Section 3 of the order, which states that “[a]bsent either Exigent Circumstances or Prior Approval, Defendants shall not take Immigration Enforcement Action Near a Protected Area.”...
DHS’s sole argument that its operations at University Baptist Church did not violate the preliminary injunction is that those operations do not qualify as “Immigration Enforcement Action[s]” under the order. DHS contends that the investigations “were not planned nor undertaken to enforce the immigration laws of the United States,” but rather “were related to alleged Title 18criminal offenses.”...
As an initial matter, DHS has wholly failed to explain under what authority ICE agents even could undertake investigations into crimes having no connection to the immigration laws...
Politico reports on these developments.
[Thanks to Scott Mange for the lead.]
