Appeals court upholds block on immigration enforcement at some religious sites
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld a Maryland judge’s injunction blocking a DHS policy that would have loosened limits on immigration enforcement at churches and other houses of worship. The injunction requires DHS to follow its 2021 guidelines, allowing arrests only with supervisor approval or urgent need, rather than the Trump-era discretionary policy. Plaintiffs—including the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Sikh Temple Sacramento, and several Quaker groups—argued the policy violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and dozens of similar lawsuits have been filed nationwide. The court held the policy likely imposes a substantial burden on free exercise, thereby violating RFRA and affirming the preliminary injunction.
about 1 month ago
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit affirmed a Maryland district court’s injunction that blocks the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from easing immigration‑enforcement restrictions at houses of worship, finding that the policy likely violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) 1 2
In January 2025, DHS ended a policy that treated churches and other “sensitive locations” as off‑limits for ICE arrests unless a supervisor approved the action 1. The new Trump‑administration policy shifted to a “discretion” and “common‑sense” standard, allowing enforcement near religious sites 2. Dozens of faith‑based groups, including the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a Sikh temple in Sacramento, and several Quaker organizations, filed suit alleging the change burdens free exercise of religion 1 2.
The plaintiffs argued that the policy violates RFRA, which prohibits governmental actions that substantially burden religious practice unless the government can demonstrate a compelling interest and the least restrictive means 1. They sought a preliminary injunction to keep DHS bound by its 2021 guidelines that limited enforcement at worship sites 2.
On August 18 2026, the 4th Circuit, in an opinion authored by Senior Judge Barbara Milano Keenan, held that the plaintiffs have standing and that the DHS rule likely imposes a substantial burden on religious exercise, triggering strict scrutiny under RFRA 1 2. The court upheld the district court’s injunction, requiring DHS to continue applying the prior, more protective guidelines while the case proceeds 1.
The coalition of plaintiffs welcomed the ruling, saying it reaffirms the promise that worshippers can gather without fear of immigration enforcement 2. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who previously partnered with Rev. Franklin Graham to oppose ICE presence in churches, praised the decision as a protection of religious freedom 1.
The decision preserves existing limits on ICE activity at religious sites and signals that courts may apply RFRA rigorously to immigration‑enforcement policies affecting faith communities. It also underscores the growing legal strategy of religious groups to challenge federal actions they view as infringing on free‑exercise rights. Future litigation will likely address whether DHS can devise a policy that satisfies both immigration objectives and RFRA’s strict‑scrutiny requirements.*
Assess Catholic doctrine on religious freedom versus state enforcement
Catholic doctrine distinguishes religious freedom from religious indifferentism and legitimate civil authority from state control of conscience. The Church teaches that every person must seek and follow religious truth, while also teaching that no human government may coerce a person into religious belief or suppress the peaceful practice of religion.
The central contemporary Catholic formulation is found in Dignitatis Humanae. The right to religious freedom means that people must be free from coercion by individuals, groups, or the state in religious matters:
“No one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.”
This right is not based on the claim that all religions are equally true. Rather, it is founded on the nature of the human person as rational and free. Because a person must seek religious truth and adhere to it through personal assent, faith cannot be produced authentically by force. Dignitatis Humanae therefore teaches that people must possess both external immunity from coercion and psychological freedom in order to fulfill their obligation to seek and follow truth.
Thus Catholic teaching holds together two propositions:
The right to religious freedom therefore protects the person from coercion; it does not declare religious error to be truth or make religious commitment morally irrelevant.
The state may not:
The Council explicitly states that government acts wrongly when it imposes, “by force or fear or other means,” either the profession or repudiation of a religion, or when it prevents people from joining or leaving a religious community.
Pope Francis likewise teaches that religious freedom includes both choosing the religion one judges true and manifesting one’s beliefs publicly. He rejects a form of secularism that permits religion only inside churches, synagogues, or mosques, describing such privatization as potentially discriminatory and authoritarian.
Religious liberty consequently includes more than private mental conviction. It embraces:
Pope Francis summarized this broader understanding by stating that religious freedom is “not only that of private thought or worship,” but also the liberty to live privately and publicly according to ethical principles arising from one’s understanding of truth.
Religious freedom does not mean that government has no legitimate authority. Civil authority has a proper role in maintaining justice and the common good. The International Theological Commission explains that political authority has a legitimate function in the historical order: it is responsible for justice and the good of the people, while remaining distinct from religious authority.
Government therefore may enforce laws against acts that genuinely violate public justice, even when those acts are religiously motivated. For example, the state may restrain:
The relevant question is not whether conduct is religious, but whether the conduct violates legitimate requirements of justice and public order. Religious motivation does not automatically immunize an action from civil law.
At the same time, “public order” cannot be defined so broadly that it becomes a pretext for suppressing unpopular religious beliefs. Dignitatis Humanae says that government must safeguard religious freedom through just laws and appropriate means, ensure equality before the law, and avoid discrimination for religious reasons.
The state has a positive responsibility to protect religious liberty, not merely to refrain from persecution. It should create conditions in which individuals and communities can exercise their religious rights and fulfill their religious duties.
The decisive boundary is that government may regulate external conduct for the sake of justice, but it may not command or prohibit the religious act as such.
The Council states:
“No merely human power can either command or prohibit” the internal, voluntary acts by which a person directs life toward God.
It adds that government exceeds its authority when it presumes “to command or inhibit acts that are religious.”
This distinction can be expressed as follows:
| Matter | Proper state authority |
|---|---|
| Internal belief and assent | No coercive authority |
| Peaceful worship | Must be protected |
| Religious speech and association | Must generally be protected |
| Criminal or harmful conduct | May be restrained |
| Public manifestations of religion | May be regulated only under just, proportionate laws |
| Church doctrine and sacramental life | Not subject to state command |
| Equal civil rights | Must be guaranteed to all |
A government may regulate the time, place, or manner of an activity when necessary to protect genuine public safety or the rights of others. But restrictions must be necessary, proportionate, and nondiscriminatory. The fact that an activity is religious does not make it illegitimate; nor does the fact that it is religious justify special hostility.
Catholic doctrine affirms the truth of the Catholic faith, but contemporary Catholic teaching does not require every state, acting as a coercive political authority, to establish Catholicism or to compel citizens to accept it. The state is not competent to determine religious truth by coercive means or to impose faith upon its citizens.
A theological analysis of the postconciliar teaching explains that the state may be culturally shaped by a particular religious tradition, but its civil function must respect the equal rights of persons and communities and must not establish coercive control over religious belief.
This does not mean that the state must exclude religion from public life or pretend that all religious and moral claims are equally true. It means that political authority is not the proper instrument for producing religious faith. Pope Leo XIV similarly teaches that legitimate temporal autonomy must not become hostility toward religion: faith should not be imposed through privilege or coercion, but neither should it be silenced as irrelevant to public life.
A state can therefore:
But it must not use the machinery of government to force conversion, impose religious observance, or deny equal civil protection to citizens of other religions or to nonbelievers.
Catholic teaching rejects both theocracy and aggressive secularism.
The Church does not seek to govern civil society as a theocratic authority. The International Theological Commission states that the Church is not competing with the state in the governance of civil society and rejects theocratic government. At the same time, it insists that the Church is not merely a private interest group and must be free to speak and act publicly in service of evangelization, social bonds, justice, and the common good.
Accordingly, the state should not:
Pope Leo XIV states that authentic freedom includes the public expression of faith by individuals, communities, and associations. A state that permits religious worship but prohibits religiously informed participation in public life would therefore provide only a diminished form of religious liberty.
The Church claims religious freedom not merely as one interest among others but as a requirement of her divine mission. She must be free to preach the Gospel, govern her internal life, worship, educate, organize, and serve the human person.
Dignitatis Humanae calls the Church’s freedom a fundamental principle governing relations between the Church, governments, and the civil order. It also connects the freedom of the Church with the religious freedom of all people: the Church’s independence and the civil rights of citizens are not rivals but mutually compatible realities.
This has practical implications for matters such as:
The state may regulate civil effects and protect persons from abuse, but it may not assume authority over the Church’s supernatural mission or internal religious identity.
Catholic doctrine recognizes that religious freedom is exercised “within due limits” and subject to just public order. This does not authorize arbitrary restrictions. A legitimate restriction should satisfy several moral conditions:
The state may prohibit violence committed during a religious ceremony, but it may not prohibit the ceremony simply because it expresses a religious claim. It may regulate buildings for fire safety, but it may not invoke safety regulations as a disguised means of closing houses of worship. It may protect children and vulnerable persons, but such protection must not become a general license to abolish legitimate religious education or parental rights.
Catholic teaching recognizes legitimate civil authority and ordinarily requires obedience to just laws. The state’s authority is real and contributes to justice in the temporal order.
But civil authority is not absolute. The International Theological Commission states:
“For Christians there is no question that supreme obedience is reserved to God alone.”
This reflects the principle that when the state commands what God forbids, or forbids what God requires, the Christian must obey God rather than the state. Such resistance should not be confused with contempt for public authority or rejection of the common good. It should ordinarily be peaceful, truthful, and proportionate.
This principle also supports conscientious objection in appropriate cases. Pope Leo XIV describes conscientious objection as the possibility of refusing legal or professional obligations that conflict with deeply held moral, ethical, or religious convictions, emphasizing that it is not necessarily rebellion but may be an act of fidelity to conscience.
Catholic doctrine rejects two opposite errors:
The Catholic position is better described as freedom ordered toward truth under the rule of just law. People have a duty to seek and follow religious truth, but the state cannot make that duty effective by coercion. Government must protect everyone’s religious freedom, enforce genuine public justice, and preserve the conditions for religious communities to contribute to society.
In summary, the state may enforce justice, but it may not enforce faith. It may restrain harmful actions, but it may not command conscience; it may regulate public conduct fairly, but it may not suppress peaceful religious life; and it must remain distinct from the Church without becoming hostile to religion.