The incoming Trump administration intends to rescind a long-standing policy that has prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from arresting undocumented people at or near so-called sensitive locations, including houses of worship, schools and hospitals or events such as funerals, weddings and public demonstrations without approval from supervisors, according to three sources familiar with the plan.
President-elect Donald Trump plans to rescind the policy as soon as the first day he is in office, according to the sources — who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the change publicly.
The move would be intended to boost ICE’s authority to arrest migrants across the country, and its speed in doing so, as part of Trump’s plan to carry out what he has said he wants to be the “largest deportation operation in American history.”
The policy preventing agents from making arrests in sensitive locations without approval started in 2011 with a memo sent by then-ICE Director John Morton, and continued through the first Trump and Biden administrations. It was meant to allow undocumented people to operate freely in certain public areas with the idea that doing so will ultimately benefit not just them, but also the larger community. In 2021, the Biden administration issued its own guidance expanding the areas that “require special protection.”
“Immigration enforcement has always required a balance. In the past, Presidents of both parties have recognized that merely because it may be lawful to make arrests at hospitals and schools doesn’t mean it’s humane or wise public policy,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.
“We don’t want people with contagious diseases too scared to go to the hospital or children going uneducated because of poorly considered deportation policies.”
Under the policy, ICE agents have been allowed to go into the sensitive locations to make arrests under certain conditions including a national security or terror issue, the arrest of a felon considered dangerous, or if there was imminent risk of death or physical harm to a person or property or concern that evidence in a criminal investigation would be destroyed.
Even when those circumstances existed, agents had to get approval from superiors in order to plan an arrest in a sensitive location. They could also go in to make an arrest in exigent circumstances when they felt immediate action was required, but needed to consult with superiors after the fact.
During the first Trump administration, there were at least 63 planned and five exigent ICE arrests at or near a sensitive location, according to ICE data covering the period from Oct. 1, 2017, through Oct. 31, 2020.
The idea that Trump might allow ICE agents to make arrests anywhere, even inside schools and houses of worship, without the current limitations began circulating in Project 2025, a list of policy proposals distributed by the Heritage Foundation prior to the election.
Some church leaders say they have faced harassment for providing sanctuary space to migrants and are already having conversations about the impacts of a policy change on sensitive locations.
“A lot of churches, faith communities are very concerned that there could be backlash,” said a deacon at a church in Arizona that has served as a sanctuary space for migrants in the past. The church leader asked that NBC News not use the person's name because of safety concerns for the congregation.
In January 2017, at the beginning of Trump’s first term, then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly rewrote several policies of both ICE and Customs and Border Protection, but did not rescind the sensitive location rule.
One former Department of Homeland Security official said changing the sensitive locations policy might be welcome news for some agents who have felt stymied by restrictions on where they can operate and felt the policy was “abused” by wanted individuals in the past.
“I think maybe at the time, there was good reason for it,” the former official said. “I don’t think it’s necessary anymore.”
According to the former Homeland Security official, ICE agents already take an individual’s circumstances into account when considering where to best carry out an enforcement action, and removing the policy only makes things “less administratively burdensome.”
Though the change would have broader implications, it could mean an end to the history of people who have sought out deportation protection, sometimes for years, by living at sensitive locations such as churches. In 2019, there were a least 46 people staying in churches across 15 states, according to Church World Service, a faith-based organization that tracked the number of sanctuary seekers in America.
