Washington – A federal judge refused on Friday to prevent immigration agents from carrying out application operations in the houses of worship in a lawsuit filed by religious groups on a new policy adopted by the Trump administration.
The American district judge Dabney Friedrich in Washington issued the ruling in a lawsuit filed by more than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans.
The judge discovered that there has only been a handful of such application actions and religions had not shown the type of legal damage that would justify a preliminary court order.
“At least at this situation and in this registry, the plaintiffs have not made the required demonstration of a” credible threat “, wrote Friedrich, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first mandate. “Nor does the current registration show that places of worship are being indicated as special objectives.”
On January 20, his first day back in office, Trump’s republican administration rescinded a policy of the National Security Department that limited where migrant arrests could occur. His new policy said that field agents who use “common sense” and “discretion” can carry out immigration application operations in worship houses without the approval of a supervisor.
The lawyers of the plaintiffs affirmed that the new National Security Directive moves away from the 30 -year policy of the Government against the implementation of immigration application operations in “protected areas” or “sensitive locations.”
In February, a federal judge in Maryland failed against the Trump administration in a similar case presented by a coalition of Quakers and other religious groups. The order of the United States District Judge, Theodore Chang, in that case was limited to those plaintiffs.
A judge in Colorado was put on the side of the administration in another demand on the reversal of a similar policy that had limited immigration arrests in schools.
