Government · Boston, MA Metro · August 19, 2026
Federal Court Blocks DHS Immigration Raids at Houses of Worship
What Alinsky tactic is being used
2 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 9
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
The injury the court acted on was fear, not a tally of raids: plaintiffs showed diminished attendance at worship, Bible studies and community programs, cancelled outreach and lost giving, because members feared an encounter with ICE. The DHS spokesman's January 2025 line that criminals could no longer 'hide' in schools and churches did most of its work as an announcement — the threat travelled far faster and wider than any enforcement action at a church door. Judge Saylor's February 13, 2026 order turns on that chilling effect, which is precisely the mechanism of Rule 9.
Counter-Rule 9 · Courageous Realism
Name the worst case out loud and cost it honestly. Fear of the unnamed is doing most of the work.
Name the worst case out loud in your own parish this month and cost it honestly: read what the February 13, 2026 injunction actually does — it bars warrantless enforcement inside plaintiff churches, on adjacent property like parking lots, and within 100 feet of entrances, and it does not apply where agents hold a judicial or administrative warrant, nor to congregations that were not plaintiffs. Ask your pastor to state plainly at a council meeting whether your congregation is covered, and have someone write down the answer. A congregation that knows the actual scope stops being governed by rumor about it.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The churches won not by appealing to sentiment but by holding the government to its own book of rules — the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the First Amendment, and the Administrative Procedure Act's procedural requirements. The court found the 2025 policy likely imposed a substantial burden on religious exercise that was not the least restrictive means, and a related Maryland ruling treated the guidance as reviewable final agency action. The whole case is Rule 4 run against a federal agency, and it worked because the gap between the written standard and the practice was real.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
Close the same kind of gap at home before anyone points at it. If your congregation's stated welcome to immigrant neighbors exists only in a mission statement, ask the council to adopt an actual written procedure — who speaks to officers at the door, what is public space and what is not, what is logged and by whom — and get the adoption date and vote into the minutes. Keep your own records accurate and unexaggerated; the plaintiffs here prevailed on documented declines in attendance and giving, not on adjectives.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
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