Federal immigration authorities will be permitted to arrest people and carry out enforcement actions in and near places such as churches and schools, marking a departure from long-standing policy to avoid so-called sensitive areas.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary, Benjamine Huffman, announced the end of two directives in a statement, giving agents more authority over whether they carry out enforcement and eliminating a legal pathway for migrants seeking to come to the United States.

“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense,” the statement reads.

It’s a key example of how enforcement is going to be different under the new Trump administration from the Biden administration.

Migrants seeking asylum in the United States gather near the border wall after crossing a razor wire fence deployed to inhibit their crossing into the United States, as a member of the Texas National Guard escorts them, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico December 19, 2024.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement set a policy in 2011 preventing agents from making arrests in sensitive locations. The Biden administration put out similar guidance. Immigrant advocates have shared concerns over stripping that policy, arguing that doing so would stoke fear in immigrant communities and keep children from going to school or people from seeking care at hospitals.

The second directive includes the phaseout of parole programs that allowed certain migrants to temporarily live and work in the United States. Republicans have repeatedly said the Biden administration abused the parole program by extending it to multiple nationalities. The statement doesn’t clarify which programs will be phased out, but says the program will be returned to a “case-by-case basis.”

“The Biden-Harris Administration abused the humanitarian parole program to indiscriminately allow 1.5 million migrants to enter our country. This was all stopped on day one of the Trump Administration. This action will return the humanitarian parole program to its original purpose of looking at migrants on a case-by-case basis,” the statement says. (CNN, excluding headline)