U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California issued a 71-page ruling on June 23, suspending nationwide the Trump administration's policy that allowed arrests in immigration courts and the practice of removing restrictions on detention time.
Judge Pitts ruled that the measures were arbitrary and violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The ruling stated that attorneys from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Executive Office for Immigration Review, both under the Department of Homeland Security, failed to provide a "reasonable explanation" for their actions.
The practice of courthouse arrests first emerged during Trump's first term, granting federal agents the authority to detain individuals directly at immigration court hearings. Pitts emphasized that this policy was "based on the erroneous assumption that previous 2021 guidance limiting courthouse arrests had been properly rescinded."
The judge also noted that authorities had not "intelligibly explained" their reasoning for abandoning prior restrictions on civil enforcement measures.
Regarding detention time, Pitts ruled that a regulation allowing detainees to be held for more than 12 hours violated rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. He pointed out that at the immigration center in San Francisco, some individuals were held for much longer than 12 hours, even overnight or for several days. The judge canceled the practice, stating that ICE had not considered alternative solutions to space shortages.
Reaction from the Department of Homeland Security
James Percival, Principal Legal Advisor for the Department of Homeland Security, sharply criticized the court ruling in a statement the same day. Percival said, "When a criminal judge issues a sentence, the defendant is taken into custody. The same should happen when an immigration judge orders the deportation of a foreign national. The district judge's ruling to the contrary is nothing but judicial activism serving an anti-American agenda."
Similar Ruling in New York
Last month, U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel in New York also ruled that federal agents could no longer make arrests in immigration courts in Manhattan. Castel concluded that the Trump administration's decision to remove previous restrictions on courthouse actions was "arbitrary and capricious."
Immigrant community leaders and Democratic lawmakers had sharply criticized the practice, stating that courthouse arrests led to violent confrontations in the hallways of courtrooms and harmed local communities.
