A federal judge in California has issued a nationwide block against the Trump administration’s policy of making arrests at immigration courts, putting an end to a practice that garnered national attention. The policy, which began last year, allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain migrants in courthouse hallways across the country, sometimes moments after pleading their cases.

Background

The move raised alarm among attorneys and advocates who said the practice was turning immigration courts from places of due process into zones of fear and punishing people who were following the rules. The Trump administration had argued that the previous guidance hampered the ability of immigration enforcement officers to apprehend dangerous individuals.

In a 71-page ruling, Judge P. Casey Pitts acknowledged the “chilling effect” of ICE’s policy, finding that it was “arbitrary and capricious.” The judge stated that simply extending the 2025 courthouse-arrest policies to cover immigration courthouses would not cure those policies’ fatal defects.

Reaction

Jordan Wells, senior staff attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, applauded the ruling. “The courthouse is meant to be a refuge for the pursuit of justice, not a hunting ground for ICE. No illegal immigrant, whether appearing in San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, or New York, should be forced to choose between their liberty and their day in court,” Wells said in a statement.

Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival also weighed in on the ruling, saying: “When a judge sentences a defendant, the defendant is taken into custody. If an illegal immigrant is ordered removed by an immigration judge, the same should happen. A district judge ordering otherwise is naked judicial activism in service of an anti-American, open borders agenda.”

Original reporting: KTVZ (Central Oregon) — read the source article.