Judge halts ICE arrests at NYC courthouse following shocking memo

A federal judge has issued a ruling that prevents immigration agents from arresting individuals within the confines of New York City's immigration court. This decision came after it was revealed that ICE had mistakenly instructed its officers to conduct such arrests.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency had previously informed top government lawyers that its officers were authorized to arrest people inside immigration courthouses. This led to situations where agents stationed outside courtroom doors would quickly cuff immigrants as they exited their hearings, causing widespread chaos across the country.

In a letter addressed to a federal judge in March, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan expressed "regret" over his office's previous defense of a memo that "does not and has never applied" to immigration court arrests. District Judge Kevin Castel had initially refused to strike down the policy, but following the government's recent acknowledgment of the mistake, he issued a new order to "correct a clear error and prevent a manifest injustice."

He noted in his ruling that his earlier decision "relied upon the clearly erroneous premise" that ICE agents could arrest individuals in immigration court.

Unlike federal district courts, immigration courts and judges operate under the Department of Justice, guided by the attorney general. Last year, the Trump administration ordered immigration judges to dismiss nearly all cases when immigrants appeared for their court-mandated hearings, making them immediately vulnerable to arrest and removal before they could appeal.

This policy led to scenes of masked agents patrolling courthouse hallways and removing immigrants who were then placed in fast-tracked removal proceedings. Critics described these actions as "ambush"-style arrests that violated due process protections.

In a separate case last year, another federal judge criticized the policy of courthouse arrests, calling it a "game of detention roulette."

A lawsuit filed by advocacy groups The Door and African Communities Together challenged what they called the Trump administration’s "sweeping, unprecedented campaign of targeting noncitizens" in immigration courts.

In a memo sent to all Enforcement and Removal officers on March 19 and disclosed in court documents, ICE's assistant director of field operations Liana Castano clarified that the agency's arrest policy "does not apply" to immigration courts, regardless of their location.

U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton in Manhattan blamed ICE and the agency's legal team for having "specifically informed" his office that the memo "applied to immigration courthouse arrests," according to a letter to Judge Castel in March.

“Based on our discussions with ICE today, this regrettable error appears to have occurred because of agency attorney error,” Clayton wrote.

Monday’s ruling was hailed as an "enormous win" for noncitizen New Yorkers seeking to attend their immigration court proceedings safely, said Amy Belsher, director of Immigrants’ Rights Litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union.

“For nearly a year, we’ve watched masked ICE officers ambush noncitizens in courthouse hallways, throw immigrant New Yorkers to the ground, and tear children from their parents,” she said in a statement. “Now, ICE has admitted that it does not and has never had an explanation or justification for conducting mass arrests at immigration courts. We look forward to a final ruling in the case that sets aside these cruel, pointless policies once and for all.”

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security stated that it is "common sense to take illegal aliens into custody following the completion of their removal proceedings."

“We are confident we will ultimately be vindicated in this case,” a spokesperson said.

Immigrant advocacy groups suing ICE over those arrests told the judge that there is "no evidence that the agency engaged in reasoned decision-making when enacting this dramatic change in policy."

“Hundreds of real people — with families, schools, medical appointments, jobs and lives — arrived at immigration courts to attend mandatory hearings only to be summarily arrested by ICE agents outside the courtrooms as they left pursuant to ICE’s unreasoned policy,” they wrote in court filings last month.

“The harms resulting from the new policy have been immediate and severe: absent limitations on who ICE will arrest, each and every noncitizen must now make a choice to either attend their mandatory hearings and face unlawful arrest resulting in loss of employment, family separation, and the interruption of medical care or live with in absentia removal order hanging over their heads,” they said.

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