(RNS) — Faith groups suing President Donald Trump’s administration filed a motion Thursday (Aug. 20) alleging the Department of Homeland Security committed “multiple egregious violations” of a court order that largely barred warrantless surveillance at their churches. The motion, filed on behalf of the 11 religious plaintiffs, also asked the court to issue an order showing why DHS shouldn’t be held in contempt.
“Given the blatant and repeated nature of Defendants’ violations, the harm to fundamental rights of religion and expressive association, and the threat of future similar violations, Plaintiffs also respectfully request the Court’s expedited consideration of this motion,” the filing reads.
The religious plaintiffs — which include denominations such as American Baptist Churches USA, Alliance of Baptists, and several regional bodies of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — sued the administration last July challenging the government’s decision to rescind the “sensitive locations” policy that had previously discouraged immigration raids at locations such schools, hospitals, and churches. A federal judge eventually issued a 62-page injunction in February temporarily barring warrantless investigations on the grounds of churches involved in the case — except in “exigent” circumstances.
But last week, as first reported by A Public Witness, documents filed in a separate case detailed DHS surveillance operations in five churches in the Midwest, including a church subject to the injunction.
An ICE agent holds a pepper-spray canister while questioning a person on Jan. 27, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Adam Gray/Associated Press)
Skye Perryman, head of Democracy Forward, one of the groups representing the faith organizations, accused DHS agents in a statement of invading “churches and other places of sanctuary, terrorizing the people who seek refuge and respite within them.”
“It is clear that the government will stop at nothing — including at church doors — in its campaign to stoke fear in communities across the country, so we are asking the court to hold them accountable for this intrusion,” Perryman said of the case, which is known as New England Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America v. Department of Homeland Security.
Several of the surveillance operations described in the documents, including an instance where an undercover DHS agent entered a church for at least two hours, took place at University Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The church is affiliated with two groups that are plaintiffs in the case: American Baptist Churches USA and the Alliance of Baptists.
The new motion accuses federal agents of “repeatedly violat(ing) the preliminary injunction at University Baptist Church in Minneapolis” despite signs posted around the church building declaring “these Premises are a Protected Area Pursuant to Federal Court Order in New England Synod v. Department of Homeland Security.” The motion also claims the plaintiff’s lawyers spoke with lawyers for DHS about the surveillance, and that the government’s legal team insisted the activities do not quality as “immigration enforcement actions” largely barred by the court order.
But lawyers for the faith groups rejected that argument, alleging “DHS has wholly failed to explain under what authority ICE agents even could undertake investigations into crimes having no connection to the immigration laws.” They further alleged DHS did not take “any steps to consider the preliminary injunction before it took action at University Baptist Church and to ensure that its actions at the church were compliant with the order. It certainly has not suggested that it did.”
As a result, the motion contends, “the argument DHS offers now may reflect merely a post-hoc effort by DHS to escape the consequences of its conduct rather than its considered interpretation of the order.”
A DHS spokesperson told RNS on Monday the agency would not comment on the filings, saying in a statement that “DHS does not comment on the existence or status of specific on-going investigations, nor on investigative methods.” The spokesperson referred further inquiries to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, who did not respond to questions from Religion News Service.
The case is one of four similar ongoing lawsuits regarding the sensitive locations policy that more than 50 religious denominations, regional denominational bodies, faith-based organizations, and individual houses of worship have filed against the government since Trump began his second term. In addition to New England Synod v. DHS, several regional Quaker groups, a Sikh temple, and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship won a similar preliminary injunction last year in a separate lawsuit. The latter injunction was appealed, but a federal appeals court unanimously agreed on Tuesday to the leave the injunction in place.
