A federal judge refused to block ICE from arresting migrants at New York City’s immigration courtrooms, ruling Friday that the new Trump policy expanding the use of courthouse arrests doesn’t appear to violate any law.
But Judge P. Kevin Castel, a George W. Bush appointee to the court in New York, did say another policy enacted by the Justice Department to have immigration judges dismiss cases so the migrants can be quickly picked up by ICE does run afoul of the law.
The result is a partial victory for immigrant rights groups, who complained about the Trump administration’s attempt to expand the pipeline of arrests and deportations.
Several arrests in New York’s immigration courthouses have gone viral, with activists accusing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of “abducting” people who showed up to defend their claims of asylum or otherwise argue why they should be allowed to stay, their unlawful immigration status notwithstanding.
Activists said the administration was short-circuiting the immigration cases by having judges dismiss them, opening the way for ICE officers to swoop in to make arrests and set up deportations under the expedited removal process, which can be done without an immigration judge’s order as long as it’s within two years of illegal entry.
Judge Castel said that while judges have the power to grant dismissals, the Justice Department was wrong to establish a policy pushing them to do so in order to facilitate the ICE arrests.
He said ICE’s hope for more arrests doesn’t meet the standard in law, and he issued a stay.
But he said ICE does seem legally empowered to make more courthouse arrests on its own.
The Trump administration issued guidance to ICE officers and agents in May governing all courthouses, including the immigration courts, which are a part of the executive branch, not the judiciary.
The new policy specifically grants ICE the authority to make an immigration arrest “in or near courthouses” as long as it has credible information to support it.
That new guidance superseded a policy in 2021 from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who discouraged courthouse arrests, saying they could scare migrants from showing up.
Judge Castel said the new Trump policy “balanced” things differently, but not illegally.
“The agency stated its reason that courthouses were safe places to effectuate arrests because of security screening. It also explained that an alternative safe place to make an arrest, a correctional facility or prison, was not available to it because of state and local policies regarding immigration detainers. Implicitly, the agency asserted its belief that its new policy was better,” the judge wrote.
