The Arrest Did Not Happen. The Injury Did.

A policy can change conduct before it is enforced

For decades, federal immigration agencies limited enforcement actions at or near houses of worship and other sensitive locations. The 2021 version of that policy generally directed officers to avoid enforcement in protected areas, absent approval or exigent circumstances. In January 2025, the Department of Homeland Security rescinded those guidelines and instructed officers to rely on discretion and common sense.

The public announcement was more pointed. DHS said criminals would no longer be able to hide in schools and churches. The government later argued that the new policy did not prevent the plaintiff congregations from worshiping or conducting ministry, and that the congregations could not show immigrants would actually stay away.

That argument treats a policy as legally consequential only when an officer executes it. Human behavior does not work that way. People respond to credible risk before the threatened event occurs. A mother does not need to see an arrest in the church parking lot before deciding that taking her children to a service is too dangerous. A congregation does not need to witness a raid before locking a door that its faith tells it to keep open.

What the Fourth Circuit actually decided

In Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends v. Department of Homeland Security, a unanimous three-judge panel affirmed a preliminary injunction requiring DHS to follow the prior protected-areas guidelines when conducting enforcement in or near the plaintiffs' houses of worship. The plaintiffs include Quaker meetings, Sikh Temple Sacramento, and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

The court held that the plaintiffs had standing at this stage and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding them likely to succeed on their Religious Freedom Restoration Act claim. RFRA generally bars the federal government from substantially burdening religious exercise unless the government demonstrates that applying the burden to the person is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest.

The panel did not decide the plaintiffs' First Amendment expressive-association claim. It did not enter a final judgment. It did not forbid all immigration enforcement at churches. The injunction permits arrests authorized by administrative or judicial warrants and incorporates the prior policy's exceptions for exigent circumstances. Judge G. Steven Agee's concurrence emphasized that the injunction protects only entities affiliated with the plaintiffs. Other places of worship would need to bring their own proceedings and develop their own evidence.

Those limits matter. A preliminary injunction is an interim remedy based on likelihood, irreparable harm, the equities, and public interest. Reporting that the Fourth Circuit broadly banned immigration arrests at houses of worship would overstate the holding.

The evidence was institutional, not abstract

The plaintiffs did more than say they felt chilled. Their declarations described congregants who were less willing to attend worship or ministry programs after the policy change. One Cooperative Baptist Fellowship congregation reported a 66 percent decline in attendance at its English-language classes. Others reported reduced participation in food pantries, clothing programs, and religious services. Sikh congregants expressed concern that participating in communal worship could expose them to enforcement.

The evidence also connected attendance to religious practice. Quaker worship depends on gathering without ordained clergy and on the possibility that any participant may be moved to speak. Sikh worship includes communal singing and langar, the shared meal. Baptist congregations described welcoming immigrants and providing services as expressions of faith rather than optional community programming.

That connection transformed the case. The asserted harm was not simply that immigrants might make a private decision to avoid a building. Their predictable response changed the congregations' ability to worship communally and carry out religious obligations. The institution itself was injured through the conduct of people reacting to government policy.

Standing doctrine does not require people to ignore danger

The government's causation argument rested partly on the choices of third parties. Immigrants, not DHS, decide whether to attend a service. Ordinarily, a chain of independent decisions can make standing difficult to establish.

The Fourth Circuit rejected the idea that third-party choice breaks causation whenever fear is involved. The question is whether the reaction is predictable. On the record before it, the panel concluded that many immigrants could reasonably be expected to avoid the plaintiffs' houses of worship because the government had removed location-based constraints and publicly emphasized enforcement in churches.

This is the decision's most important feature. Government often acts by changing the risk environment rather than issuing a direct command. A person may still possess a formal right to attend worship, seek medical care, report a crime, or appear in court. If exercising that right now carries a credible enforcement risk, the right remains on paper while conduct changes in the world.

Courts should be careful with self-imposed-injury theories. A plaintiff cannot manufacture standing through an unreasonable fear of hypothetical action. But requiring people to wait for the feared event would create the opposite error. It would make preventive relief unavailable precisely when a public policy is succeeding through deterrence rather than direct enforcement.

Religious exercise includes the people who show up

There is a subtle institutional point here. Religious liberty is sometimes discussed as an individual entitlement to belief or prayer. The record showed something more social. For these plaintiffs, who gathers, who feels welcome, and who participates are part of the religious exercise itself.

That does not convert every decline in attendance into a federal claim. The plaintiffs still had to connect the challenged federal policy to concrete harm and show a likely substantial burden on sincere religious exercise. The court's conclusion arose from a developed factual record at the preliminary-injunction stage, not a presumption that every enforcement policy burdens religion.

Still, the opinion recognizes an obvious truth that legal analysis can miss: an open door is not meaningful if the people invited through it reasonably believe they are walking into danger. Institutions exercise rights through human participation. A policy directed at individuals can burden the organizations that depend on them.

Narrow relief is not trivial relief

Critics of nationwide injunctions have pressed courts to tailor relief to the parties before them. This case shows the cost of that approach as well as its discipline. The order protects listed, plaintiff-affiliated sites. It does not automatically restore the 2021 policy for every church, school, hospital, shelter, or courthouse in the country.

The narrow scope respects the record and avoids turning one preliminary proceeding into a universal rule. It also creates a patchwork. A congregation's protection may depend on affiliation with a plaintiff, while another congregation with similar beliefs and fears remains outside the order until it brings a case and proves the same elements.

That is not a reason to exaggerate the injunction. It is a reason for lawyers and institutions to read the operative language rather than the headline. The practical question is not whether a court has declared all houses of worship safe from enforcement. It has not. The question is which entities are covered, what the restored guidelines require, and what claims remain unresolved as the litigation continues.

The legal system often arrives after fear has done its work

Law is comfortable with visible events. An arrest, a search, a denied benefit, or a signed order gives doctrine something solid to hold. Chilling effects are harder because they operate through choices not made, rooms not entered, and services not used.

Yet those absences can be the policy's most significant consequence. The Fourth Circuit did not hold that every fear is an injury or that immigration enforcement must stop at every church door. It held that a court may consider evidence of predictable avoidance and the institutional damage that follows. That is modest doctrine applied to consequential facts.

The arrest did not have to happen first. By the time it did, the legal injury alleged here would already have become easier to see and much harder to repair.

General educational information only. This article discusses a preliminary injunction in ongoing litigation, not a final merits judgment, and is not legal advice.