An Obama-appointed federal judge ruled Monday that deportation officers are not permitted to conduct enforcement operations in certain places of worship, potentially giving criminal illegal migrants safe haven from law enforcement.

U.S. District Court Judge Theodore D. Chuang in Maryland has paused President Donald Trump's administration from continuing any raids in a handful of religious institutions as part of the mass deportation plan.

A federal judge in Maryland on Monday halted the Trump administration’s attempts to raid houses of worship to arrest undocumented immigrants as part of its aggressive mass deportation campaign. Judge Theodore Chuang,

The administration will not be able to make arrests where the Quakers, Cooperative Baptists and Sikhs worship, as those groups filed a lawsuit against the federal government.

Quakers, Baptists and Sikhs filed a lawsuit opposed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions at places of worship, which have been off limits.

The Trump administration was preliminarily blocked by a federal court from conducting immigration raids in or near certain places of worship.

In a decisive ruling, a Maryland federal judge on Monday barred U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from conducting immigration enforcement operations at or near houses of worship of several religious groups,

A federal judge in Maryland ruled Monday that the Trump administration acted too hastily with its new policy unshackling immigration officers to make arrests anywhere, including churches, saying such actions would trample on the rights of churches and temples to conduct their services.