A suit was filed on Monday in a Missouri federal district court alleging that a detention center housing 150 immigration detainees is violating the free exercise rights of detainees and Catholic clergy. The complaint (full text) in Rozanski v. Stolzer, (ED MO, filed 10/5/2026), the Archdiocese of St. Louis alleges in part:
1. Under the First Amendment—and federal and state statutes that protect the rights enshrined in it—the government may not (a) ban the exercise of religion or (b) treat religious practice differently than it treats analogous secular activity. Yet the Ste. Genevieve County Detention Center manages to commit both sins by imposing a visitation policy that prevents Catholic priests from meaningfully ministering to Catholic federal detainees housed there (while readily allowing exceptions to the policy for non-religious reasons).
2. ...The jail’s visitation policy prohibits this basic religious exercise in two ways. First, it allows only “no contact” visits, which are not private and prevent face-to-face interactions. This prevents priests from administering the sacraments of confession and communion. Second, the policy permits clergy visits for only a single, four-hour period once a week. This severely restricts priests’ ability provide pastoral care, as priests cannot meet with all detainees who wish to see a Catholic priest (and have only limited time with those they do visit). Priests are also prohibited from saying Mass....
3. Worse still, the policy applies to clergy but not to lawyers or consular officials, for whom exceptions to the policy are readily made. That constitutes more favorable treatment for secular activity than religious exercise....
4. ... [T]he visitation policy violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”), the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, the Missouri Religious Freedom Restoration Act ... and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”)....
St. Louis Public Radio reports on the lawsuit.
