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See the full story · 1 sourcesHomeland Security could be held in contempt for spying on churchgoers in recently revealed ‘Operation Puppet Master’ scheme
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A federal judge will decide whether to hold Donald Trump’s administration in contempt after immigration agents violated court orders barring them from entering places of worship.
In February, Massachusetts District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV blocked a Trump administration policy giving agents permission to make arrests inside places of worship, calling the potential consequences of such an operation “profoundly troubling.”
On Monday, the judge sided with church groups who successfully sued the government and agreed to hold a hearing next month to determine why the Trump administration “should not be held in contempt for violating the preliminary injunction.” The government must respond by August 28.
Court filings revealed that undercover Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers spied on people who attended church meetings and ran license plate numbers of worshippers’ cars, part of a recently unveiled surveillance campaign that sought to crack down on protests after a surge of federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.
An undercover ICE agent infiltrated and covertly recorded a class inside the University Baptist Church gymnasium in May, according to recent filings from the Department of Homeland Security. Other agents spent hours outside the church, noting when people entered and exited, and ran registration checks on license plates — including cars parked in a library parking lot next door.
Those actions “constitute clear and egregious violations” of a judge’s preliminary injunction that bars enforcement actions on church grounds, lawyers for several faith groups wrote.
Faith leaders and churchgoers in Minneapolis were “shocked and upset that ICE not only was monitoring the church, and doing so on Sundays, a holy day of worship, but even entered the church itself,” lawyers wrote last week.
“This is a complete violation of our sacred space,” former church president Jean E. Lubke wrote in court documents. “The Church is meant to be a place of sanctuary and safety — not infiltration by government agents.”
Homeland Security Investigations, ICE’s investigative arm, launched “Operation Puppet Master” on January 28 in the days after federal agents fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
ICE revealed the plan in court documents defending the government’s prosecution of 15 Minneapolis activists that has expanded to include investigations into left-leaning organizations, including collecting financial records for labor unions and nonprofit groups Sunrise Movement and Voices for Racial Justice.
According to an officer’s report submitted in court documents , an undercover agent attending what the government described as a left-wing martial arts group in University Baptist Church’s gymnasium on May 28.
The agent sparred with attendees and interviewed them with a “concealed body-worn audio recorder” — which she dropped at the end of the meeting. Three minutes after leaving the gym, and after realizing she left it behind, she returned to the gym to pick it up.
Agents also spied on people coming and going from the church on two Sundays in April, taking pictures and running license plates for several hours each day, filings revealed.
“We have been shocked and upset to discover that DHS not only has been watching people coming and going from the church and not only has been doing so on Sundays, but has even entered the church building itself in order to make recordings and surveil people inside,” Lubke wrote in a sworn statement in the Minneapolis case. “This is a complete violation of our sacred space.”
The federal investigation targeted “an organized network of conspirators operating through online and in person who are providing material support to violent opportunists and agitators involved in impeding federal law enforcement, rioting, destruction of Federal property and assaults on Federal agents and Officers,” according to court filings.
The Department of Justice has tied the investigation to Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 , titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” which civil rights scholars and legal groups have labeled a far-reaching attempt to crush dissent and silence political and ideological opponents.
Homeland Security argues that its “Operation Puppet Master” surveillance scheme did not violate court orders barring federal agents on church groups, stating that the actions didn’t qualify as “immigration enforcement” and “were not planned nor undertaken to enforce” immigration laws.
“The use of the church on that day” was not “central” to the church’s “mission,” according to the government.
Church groups fired back on Sunday , stating that Homeland Security “cannot short-circuit the process the court established in its order by unilaterally deciding that a protected area does not deserve protection, taking an enforcement action there, and then suggesting afterwards that the location should not have been on the list.”
After Trump entered office, the administration rescinded previous ICE policy that prohibited enforcement actions in sensitive locations such as places of worship, as well as schools and hospitals.
Religious groups representing thousands of congregants filed several lawsuits arguing that the Trump administration is infringing on their religious freedoms by threatening their ministry to vulnerable immigrant congregations.
In his February injunction, Judge Saylor said that “the prospect that a street-level law-enforcement agent — acting without a judicial warrant and with little or no supervisory control — could conduct a raid during a church service, or lie in wait to interrogate or seize congregants as they seek to enter a church, is profoundly troubling.”
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