A federal appeals court grilled a lawyer for churches suing over the Department of Homeland Security’s end to the “sensitive locations” policy for immigration enforcement over claims that the threat of deportation decreased service attendance.
The coalition of churches and other religious institutions sued the Trump administration over its decision to revoke a previous DHS policy that prohibited immigration enforcement activities at “sensitive” places, including churches and schools. During Thursday’s hearing before a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, questioning centered on the coalition’s claims that the threat of immigration enforcement led to attendance drops, and whether that is enough for the churches to sue over the January 2025 policy change.
Kelsi Corkran, lawyer for the group of churches, argued that any drop in attendance at religious services should be sufficient to allow the lawsuit to go forward and further urged the panel to reinstate the revoked policy.
“If even a small subset of plaintiffs, congregants, and ministry participants likely would have continued attending but for DHS’s change in enforcement policy for places of worship, and likely would return if the sensitive locations policy was restored, plaintiffs have standing to seek preliminary injunction relief,” Corkran told the panel of judges.
The hearing before the appeals court comes roughly 10 months after U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich denied the groups’ effort to reinstate the old policy, finding they lacked standing to bring the lawsuit. Friedrich found in her April 2025 ruling that the groups did not show “‘substantial evidence’ tying the rescission to the alleged declines in religious attendance.”
One of the judges questioned Corkran on how reinstating the policy would make churches and similar “sensitive locations” the safest places from immigration enforcement, even safer than someone’s home. Corkran responded by acknowledging that people will likely “be very eager to go back” if the revoked policy were restored.
DOJ lawyer Michael Talent also faced questions about the claims of attendance drops at the churches, arguing they are too vague to pin on the DHS policy change. He also defended the policy by arguing that immigration authorities will not disregard religious liberty rights to conduct operations at churches, arguing that the new policy instead allows authorities to exercise their discretion and “common sense.”
“The fact that we haven’t seen a slew of these enforcement actions at churches not only undermines their imminence argument, but I do think it also undermines their argument that the decline in attendance is traceable to the decision to rescind the [sensitive locations] policy,” Talent said.
Talent pointed to the low number of immigration enforcement operations at churches since the policy was rescinded as a reason the churches do not have a valid claim that they are threatened by possible immigration raids.
The Trump administration has defended the new policy as preventing illegal immigrants with a criminal background from hiding from law enforcement in the “sensitive” locations, previously saying the new policy will “not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
Thursday’s hearing marked the latest episode in the legal saga over DHS’s decision to revoke the “sensitive locations” policy early last year. While no federal court has ordered the old policy to be reinstated, several groups have asked courts to do so, including in a lawsuit filed in Minnesota on Wednesday.
A group of schools and a teachers union filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, also alleging a drop in attendance due to “fear” among students and parents that immigration operations would be conducted at schools.
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“Defendants’ actions have caused direct and irreparable harm to the abilities of school districts and educators to fulfill their functions—to educate children and to provide access to educational services and a safe learning environment,” the lawsuit filed on Wednesday said.
The lawsuit says the Trump administration did not follow proper procedure in revoking the old policy. The bid to end immigration enforcement operations at schools in Minnesota is the latest attempt to hamper the Trump administration’s illegal immigration crackdown in the North Star state since it began Operation Metro Surge in December 2025.