A federal judge has vacated Trump administration policies that allowed immigration agents to arrest noncitizens at immigration courthouses nationwide.
U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts ruled Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents may no longer conduct arrests at immigration courts under policies implemented by the administration last year.
Pitts, a Biden appointee, concluded that the Department of Justice (DOJ) failed to provide adequate justification for the changes and described the policies as “arbitrary and capricious.”
The administration had expanded courthouse arrests through executive action, contributing to a sharp increase in detentions at immigration courts, where individuals facing removal proceedings often appear while pursuing legal status.
In his ruling, Pitts said federal officials failed to properly evaluate the consequences of allowing arrests at immigration courthouses.
"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 decisionmaking but a complete lack of decisionmaking," Pitts wrote.
The decision follows an earlier order in which Pitts temporarily blocked courthouse arrests in the Northern District of California, including the San Francisco area.
The Justice Department had urged the court to limit any ruling to Northern California, arguing that a nationwide order would interfere with federal immigration enforcement operations.
Pitts rejected that argument.
"It is far from obvious that vacating the courthouse-arrest policies will significantly hinder ICE's operations," he wrote.
The ruling invalidates one of the administration's enforcement tools at a time when federal officials have sought to accelerate deportations and increase immigration arrests.
Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival criticized the decision and defended the administration's approach.
"When a judge sentences a defendant, the defendant is taken into custody. If an alien is ordered removed by an immigration judge, the same should happen," Percival said in a statement.
"A district judge ordering otherwise is naked judicial activism in service of an anti-American, open borders agenda," he added.