Federal judge bans ICE from arresting people in immigration courts

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A federal judge in California has issued a ruling banning Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from making arrests inside immigration courts nationwide, blocking one of the Trump administration’s strategies for carrying out mass deportations.When the Trump administration began its crackdown on illegal immigration last year, ICE reversed its previous policy against making arrests in or near immigration courthouses.As a result, many people accused of being in the country illegally have been detained and separated from their families when they show up for routine hearings and check-ins at courthouses.

Immigration attorneys have spoken out against the practice, saying it punishes people who are trying to comply with the rules and turns the justice system into a place of fear.The Department of Homeland Security has argued that courts are a safe and convenient place to detain people who are in the country illegally.

California The Department of Homeland Security is asking to dismiss its own deportation cases, after which agents arrest immigrants as they leave the courtroom and pursue expedited removals, which require no hearings before a judge.On Tuesday, Judge P.Casey Pitts, with the U.S.

District Court for the Northern District of California, issued a 71-page ruling calling the practice “arbitrary and capricious” and saying that it conflicted with prior concerns ICE had raised about the negative effect courthouse arrests have on attendance rates.Pitts was nominated to the federal bench by President Biden.

“The policies entirely fail to address the chilling effect of courthouse arrests on noncitizens’ attendance at court proceedings, which is both a critical factor underlying ICE’s 2021 guidance and an ‘important aspect of the problem’ in its own right,” Pitts wrote.James Percival, the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, decried the ruli...