Several Quaker groups have filed a lawsuit against Homeland Security, demanding it restore a sanctuary policy that largely prevented immigration agents from making arrests at or near churches. The Quakers say the latest moves trample on their First Amendment rights.

The lawsuit challenges the Trump administration’s revocation last week of a Biden-era policy barring arrests at — or even near — “sensitive” locations, including churches, schools, clinics, playgrounds, day cares, community organizations and offices that provide government services.

The new Trump policy told agents and officers to use common sense in deciding where to make arrests.

The Quakers said some immigrants will be too afraid to show up for meetings if they fear arrest, which would deny them their right to practice their religion.

Allowing arrests also denies nonimmigrants who do show up the benefit of sharing time with the migrants, the Quakers said in their lawsuit, filed Monday in federal district court in Maryland.

“Losing congregants is a substantial burden on plaintiffs’ religious exercise, especially when those congregants would bring to worship different backgrounds and life experiences,” the Quakers said. “And deterring worshippers from attending services chills plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights of association.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the government’s deportation force, has long had policies suggesting limits on where arrests can be made. Schools, clinics and houses of worship were standard.

The Biden administration expanded that list dramatically, including anywhere someone might go for assistance or government services or where children might congregate. The Biden policy also said the area around those “protected” locations was off-limits.

Exceptions were allowed for only the most serious of cases.

The Washington Times plotted no-go areas for the District of Columbia and calculated that nearly all of the city was off-limits for arrests.

The Trump administration repealed the policy, with officials saying a criminal wouldn’t be protected from arrest based on location.

In the new lawsuit, the Quakers said Homeland Security has already “started enforcement at houses of worship.”

“Allowing armed government agents wearing ICE-emblazoned jackets to park outside a religious service and monitor who enters or to interrupt the service and drag a congregant out during the middle of worship is anathema to Quaker religious exercise,” the Quakers said.

At the very least, they said, the Trump administration needed to deliver a more thoughtful discussion before it can upend the old policy.

The lawsuit was brought by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, Adelphi Friends Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, and Richmond Friends Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.