Courthouse Arrests BANNED — ICE Sidelined

Close-up of a police officer's vest with 'POLICE ICE' label

A Biden-appointed judge just blocked ICE from arresting illegal immigrants at immigration courts nationwide, tying the hands of Trump’s enforcement agenda and sparking a new fight over judicial power and border security.

Story Snapshot

A Biden judge in San Francisco issued a nationwide order stopping ICE courthouse arrests and short-term detention changes.
The ruling calls Trump’s 2025 policy “arbitrary and capricious” and claims it chills immigrants from attending court.^[2]
Immigration officers still have broad arrest powers under federal law, and the Trump administration is expected to appeal.^[14]
Legal experts warn the Supreme Court has signaled limits on nationwide injunctions from single district judges.^[7]

Biden-Appointed Judge Blocks ICE At Immigration Courts Nationwide

U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts, a Biden appointee sitting in San Francisco, has barred Immigration and Customs Enforcement from making civil immigration arrests in and around immigration courts across the country.^[2] The case arose from a class-action lawsuit brought by activist groups and several immigrants who were detained in courthouse hallways after showing up for hearings.^[3] Pitts’ 71-page opinion vacates Trump-era policies that allowed ICE officers to pick up deportable noncitizens at immigration courts and to hold them in short-term detention for longer than 12 hours while transfer decisions were made.^[2]

Judge Pitts said the Trump administration’s reversal of longtime limits on courthouse arrests showed “a complete lack of decision-making” and violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a 1946 law that demands federal agencies explain major policy changes.^[5] He faulted both ICE and the Executive Office for Immigration Review for not addressing what he called a “chilling effect” on court attendance, arguing that fear of arrest would cause many immigrants to skip their hearings and risk in-absentia removal orders.^[3] By calling the policy “arbitrary and capricious,” Pitts used the same legal label often applied by progressive groups to deregulation efforts.^[1]

How This Ruling Ties Trump’s Hands On Immigration Enforcement

Trump’s 2025 directive had rolled back Obama- and Biden-era guidance that treated courthouses almost like “sensitive locations,” where immigration enforcement was sharply limited except for national security threats or serious public safety risks.^[2] Under that change, ICE agents began targeting noncitizens at immigration courts based on the very immigration cases that brought them there.^[1] Pitts’ ruling not only stops those courthouse arrests, it also strikes down a detention policy that allowed holding recent arrestees beyond 12 hours if officers needed more time to arrange transfer, which he said violated Fifth Amendment protections because of “punitive conditions of confinement.”^[6]

For conservatives who believe laws should mean what they say, the ruling clashes with clear federal statutes. The Immigration and Nationality Act gives immigration officers power to arrest without a warrant when they have reason to believe someone is removable and likely to escape, including in public spaces like courthouses.^[14] Courts and legal analyses have long recognized that probable cause for these arrests can be based on official records, hearings, and prior orders, not just on-the-spot investigations.^[13] By focusing on paperwork and process rather than that underlying authority, the judge used administrative law to blunt an enforcement tool many see as basic common sense.

Conflicting Federal Rulings And The Supreme Court’s Shadow

This is not the first time a lower court has pushed back on courthouse arrests, but Pitts went much further than others. In March, Judge P. Kevin Castel in Manhattan, a George W. Bush appointee, granted a stay that largely stopped ICE from conducting civil immigration arrests at three specific immigration court locations in New York City after the Department of Justice admitted ICE had relied on an erroneous 2025 memo.^[20] Castel limited his order to those courts and tied it directly to the government’s concession that its own guidance never applied to immigration courts at all.^[21]

Pitts, by contrast, extended his remedy nationwide, wiping out Trump’s courthouse arrest and short-term detention policies for every immigration court in the United States.^[2] That nationwide scope raises serious questions in light of recent Supreme Court signals. In the 2022 Biden v. Texas decision, the Court warned against single district judges issuing sweeping nationwide injunctions that effectively set policy for the entire country.^[7] Legal scholars and political experts already predict the Trump administration will appeal, and many expect the high court to rein in Pitts’ order, both to restore executive power over immigration and to curb what conservatives view as raw judicial activism from the lower bench.^[2]

What Comes Next For ICE, The Courts, And Border Security

While activists celebrate the ruling as a victory for “due process,” it leaves Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a confused spot. The Department of Justice has already admitted in other litigation that ICE lawyers misread a 2025 memo and used it to justify courthouse arrests that the guidance never covered.^[5] Yet the Department of Homeland Security has continued to insist that “nothing prohibits arresting a lawbreaker where you find them,” signaling that officers should keep enforcing immigration law wherever they encounter removable noncitizens, courthouse or not.^[5] That internal split now plays out under a court order that shuts down one of ICE’s most efficient arrest locations.

🚨JUST IN🚨

A Biden-appointed judge has just struck down ICE’s 2025 courthouse arrest expansion and 72-hour detention policy nationwide.

Judge Casey Pitts claims ICE & EOIR acted arbitrarily by dropping earlier conclusions that these arrests discourage court appearances,… pic.twitter.com/RRL8YVMaew

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) June 23, 2026

The nationwide injunction also drops into a wider trend of blue-state officials and liberal judges trying to carve out zones where federal immigration law cannot be enforced. States like Oregon, New York, California, and Illinois have moved to restrict or ban civil immigration arrests in and around their courthouses, often demanding judicial warrants that immigration officers rarely need under federal law.^[19]^[25] Advocacy groups have filed at least six federal lawsuits since 2025 attacking courthouse arrests, and have already won limited injunctions in Massachusetts and New York while losing in other courts that upheld ICE’s broad statutory authority.^[19]^[2]

For readers frustrated by years of open-border chaos, Pitts’ ruling will feel like one more step away from the rule of law. Illegal immigrants can now walk into immigration court knowing ICE cannot arrest them there, even when the court is dealing with the very violations that made them removable. The Trump administration’s appeal will test not only immigration enforcement power, but also whether one Biden-appointed judge can override elected leaders and block federal officers nationwide. In the meantime, the burden falls back on overtaxed border agents and interior officers, who must track fugitives in more dangerous settings instead of the secure halls of a courthouse.