Trump DHS’s own boast used against it as court revives fight over ICE at churches

The Trump administration’s own promises to expand immigration enforcement helped shred its position Tuesday as a federal appeals court revived religious groups’ challenge to allowing ICE operations at houses of worship.In a 2-1 ruling, the D.C. Circuit found that 27 Christian and Jewish organizations likely have standing to sue over the rollback of longstanding protections.“If the Mayorkas Memo had as little effect as the dissent posits, the Administration would have had no need to rescind it in order to effectuate its new and more aggressive approach to immigration enforcement,” D.C. Circuit Judge Florence Pan wrote.The 50-page ruling does not stop immigration agents from operating at houses of worship. But it gives religious groups another chance to persuade a lower court to restore protections against those operations while the lawsuit proceeds.The dispute began after the Trump administration scrapped a policy directing immigration agents to generally avoid churches, synagogues and other sensitive...