Federal judge bans ICE from arresting people in immigration courts
-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
A federal judge in California has issued a ruling banning Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from making arrests inside immigration courts nationwide, blocking one of the Trump administration’s strategies for carrying out mass deportations.
When the Trump administration began its crackdown on illegal immigration last year, ICE reversed its previous guidance against making arrests in or near immigration courthouses.
As a result, many people accused of being in the country illegally have been detained and separated from their families when they show up for routine immigration hearings and check-ins.
In Los Angeles, the policy shift led to sweeping arrests at immigration courts, including a teenager who was detained a day after he graduated high school with honors and a father handcuffed in front of his 8-year-old son moments after a judge issued a dismissal of his deportation case.
Immigration attorneys have spoken out against the practice, saying it punishes people who are trying to comply with the rules and turns the justice system into a place of fear. The Department of Homeland Security has argued that courts are a safe and convenient place to detain people who are in the country illegally.
The Department of Homeland Security is asking to dismiss its own deportation cases, after which agents arrest immigrants as they leave the courtroom and pursue expedited removals, which require no hearings before a judge.
On Tuesday, Judge P. Casey Pitts, with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, issued a 71-page ruling calling the practice “arbitrary and capricious” and saying that it conflicted with prior concerns ICE had raised about the negative effect courthouse arrests have on attendance rates. Pitts was nominated to the federal bench by President Biden.
“The policies entirely fail to address the chilling effect of courthouse arrests on noncitizens’ attendance at court proceedings, which is both a critical factor underlying ICE’s 2021 guidance and an ‘important aspect of the problem’ in its own right,” Pitts wrote.
James Percival, the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, decried the ruling in a statement on X, calling it “naked judicial activism in service of an anti-American, open borders agenda.”
“When a judge sentences a defendant, the defendant is taken into custody,” Percival wrote. “If an alien is ordered removed by an immigration judge, the same should happen.”
Attorney Gene Hamilton, who played a key role in ending Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals while working in the Justice Department during Trump’s first term, lambasted the ruling as lawless.
“ICE can’t arrest illegal aliens at immigration court?” he wrote in a statement on X. “Won’t last on appeal. But more insanity intended to eliminate immigration enforcement.”
The ruling was issued as part of a class-action lawsuit filed by noncitizens challenging ICE’s recent practice of making arrests at immigration courthouses and detaining people for extended periods in facilities designed for short-term holds.
The case was initiated in August by an asylum-seeker from Guatemala who was arrested after leaving a routine immigration hearing in San Francisco and then held without access to adequate hygiene, sanitation, medical care and legal advice, according to the complaint.
Tuesday’s ruling follows a similar decision issued by Pitts in November that more narrowly restricted ICE from making arrests at immigration courthouses across Northern California, which he said made noncitizens face a choice between “two irreparable harms.”
“First, they may appear in immigration court and face likely arrest and detention,” he wrote in December. “Alternatively, noncitizens may choose not to appear and instead to forego their opportunity to pursue their claims for asylum or other relief from removal.”
Most people who do not show up for court hearings are ordered removed in absentia. The number of such orders issued sharply increased from around 19,000 in fiscal year 2024 to more than 50,000 in fiscal year 2025, according to Justice Department data.
Last month, a federal judge issued a ruling largely barring ICE from making such arrests at immigration courthouses in New York City.
On Tuesday, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) called on Congress to codify Pitt’s latest ruling into law by passing a bill that would ban federal agents from arresting people who show up to have their immigration cases reviewed.
“Immigrants attempting to follow immigration laws should not be punished for their good faith efforts,” she said in a statement. “The systematic arrest of immigrants attending court hearings and other appointments related to their status violates fundamental values of fairness.”
Times staff writer Sonja Sharp contributed to this report.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
In this episode, we bring you the update on how an Altadena resident and her neighborhood are coming along, plus a re-run of the two-part series we did on the Poppyfields people back in June.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
Hosts Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito sit down with Lorely Rodriguez –aka Empress Of– indie pop singer, songwriter, and producer, for a conversation about identity, resilience, and her new album Dream House, made while simultaneously rebuilding an actual house in Altadena alongside her mom.
