A federal court in Eugene held oral arguments Wednesday over the ability of ICE officers to detain people near schools, churches, and hospitals.
In January 2025, the Trump administration rescinded a Biden-era memo that asked immigration officers to avoid enforcement in or around “protected areas” whenever possible.
Now, a group of labor, religious, and education organizations are suing the federal government, arguing the new policy tramples on religious freedom and the right to associate.
They say the loss of these protections has led their members to stay home, forced teachers and medical professionals to take new precautions, and caused psychological harm to children.
At a press conference Wednesday, Reyna Lopez—the Executive Director of Woodburn-based labor organization Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste—said the Trump administration has upended longstanding immigration policy.
“When ICE prowls a hospital to detain a family seeking care for their sick child, that harm cascades far beyond that building. Families stop going to doctors. Parents avoid the ER room,” said Lopez. “And the places where we're supposed to be safe become places that people fear.”
The list of plaintiffs includes churches in Oregon, Florida and California, as well as several staff from a Beaverton school where ICE officers arrested a parent last July.
In February, they submitted an emergency motion to block the 2025 memo while the case moves forwards. The defendants, meanwhile, have requested that the case be dismissed.
During oral arguments Wednesday, government lawyer Stephen Tagert disputed the plaintiffs’ standing in this case, and he said the claims that the memo had led to their harm were unproven.
Tagert described the new policy as a “modest change” that moved the approval process for an ICE officer going into a sensitive location to a more local level.
He argued that because the Biden-era memo didn’t bar immigration officers from sensitive locations, and the Trump-era memo doesn’t tell officers to go there, the change is a matter of internal structure.
“At the end of the day, an agency is going to make a decision or it’s not going to make a decision,” said Tagert.
On Wednesday, Federal Judge Ann Aiken expressed skepticism at some of the defendant’s arguments.
She said the rescission of the Biden-era Mayorkas memo had removed “all protective safeguards,” and enforcement action in Minnesota had created a “chilling effect” on people going to sensitive locations.
“There's no comparison to what was happening under the Mayorkas memorandum, and now what's happening, correct?” said Aiken to Tagert.
Aiken didn’t say how she planned to rule on each side's motion at Wednesday’s hearing, but told the lawyers that something would be released shortly.
