President Donald Trump has attempted to enact as much of his policy agenda as possible through executive orders but has found many of his actions challenged by lawsuits and summarily blocked by partisan judges.

One recent example involved an Obama-era judge imposing an injunction on a Trump order that allowed immigration officials to arrest illegal aliens in "sensitive" places like churches and schools, according to Fox News.

However, unlike most of the other injunctions and temporary restraining orders that other federal judges have imposed and made applicable nationwide, this particular judge limited his ruling to only apply to the handful of churches that filed the lawsuit.

Trump rescinded Biden order that placed "sensitive" areas off-limits to ICE

One of the first executive orders signed by President Trump on his first day in office was one that rescinded dozens of executive actions signed by his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, over the prior four years.

Included among those rescinded orders was one that essentially barred Immigration and Customs Enforcement from entering or making arrests of illegal aliens at "sensitive" locations like churches, hospitals, and schools.

Given that recission, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE quickly announced that illegal aliens would no longer be able to find safety from arrest and possible deportation by hiding out in any of those previously off-limits areas.

Predictably, a lawsuit was quickly filed by a collection of Quaker congregations along the East Coast, a coalition of Baptist churches in the South, and a Sikh temple in California.

Judge agrees with plaintiffs that Trump policy might violate First Amendment rights

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, appointed by former President Barack Obama to the bench in Maryland, issued a 59-page ruling that partially granted and partially denied a request for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction against President Trump's rescinding of former President Biden's "sensitive areas" order.

The judge determined that the "substantial burden" raised by the plaintiffs about Trump's order was "far from speculative and is already occurring."

Chuang indicated that he agreed with the plaintiffs' arguments that Trump's order violated their First Amendment-protected right of freedom of assembly and would cause a "chilling effect" on the exercise of that right by not just illegal aliens but also legal immigrants and even U.S. citizens fearful of possible ICE raids in their houses of worship.

"The 2025 Policy will significantly affect Plaintiff's expressive association by removing any meaningful limitations on intrusions into places of worship by armed law enforcement officers," the judge wrote.

Injunction limited to only the plaintiffs in the case

However, Politico reported, while the plaintiffs had demanded a nationwide injunction against President Trump's order and a return to the status quo under former President Biden's prior order, Judge Chuang declined to go that far and limited his injunction to only apply to the plaintiffs themselves.

The judge concluded, "In issuing this injunction, the Court does not question that law enforcement, when necessary, must have the ability to conduct operations in or near places of worship," suggesting that arrests made with proper warrants would still be allowed even in the supposedly off-limits congregations.

"The court finds only that at this early stage of the case, on the sensitive and fraught issue of when and under what circumstances law enforcement may intrude into places of worship to conduct warrantless operations," he added, "the 2025 policy’s lack of any meaningful limitations or safeguards on such activity likely does not satisfy these constitutional and statutory requirements" for the plaintiffs, and that a return to the status quo for them was warranted until the "exact contours" of the policy could be determined as the litigation proceeds.