Federal judge bars ICE from making arrests at immigration courts
A federal judge on Tuesday issued a nationwide ban on policies by the Trump administration allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to arrest immigrants going to and from immigration court hearings. (Photo by Douglas Rissing/Getty Images)
A federal judge on Tuesday issued a nationwide ban on policies by the Trump administration allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to arrest immigrants going to and from immigration court hearings.
In a 71-page order, U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California also vacated a policy extending the time that federal authorities can hold immigration detainees in temporary lockups from 12 hours to 72 hours.
Pitts called the Trump administration policies “arbitrary and capricious” and said they were in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. Pitts wrote that the Department of Justice failed to provide “reasoned explanations” for the policies.
“It is now clear that the lack of connection between ICE’s stated rationales for the 2025 courthouse-arrest policies and the expansion of arrests at immigration courthouses results not from merely unreasoned decision-making but a complete lack of decision-making,” Pitts wrote.
The ruling came in a class action lawsuit challenging the policies that have spurred a surge in immigration-related arrests at courthouses and allowed for increasingly long detention in ICE facilities built for brief periods.
The New York Times, Law.com and Politico had coverage of the ruling.
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