In a major ruling, a federal judge in California has voided Trump administration nationwide policies that expanded arrests at immigration courthouses and increased detention periods for noncitizens in short-term facilities, describing the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and another agency as “arbitrary and capricious.”
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts vacated Immigration and Customs Enforcement policies that had lifted earlier restrictions on courthouse arrests and allowed noncitizens to be held in short-term detention facilities for up to 72 hours.
He also struck down a similar directive from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which had removed limits on making arrests at courthouses.
In a 71-page decision, the court ruling—issued in a case filed by an asylum seeker who was detained after leaving a routine hearing at a San Francisco immigration court—invalidated key elements of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement approach.
Judge P. Casey Pitts, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, effectively restored Biden-era rules that restricted courthouse arrests to limited situations and reduced the maximum time for holding detainees in short-term facilities to 12 hours.
Since Donald Trump returned to office in January last year, his administration has intensified the arrest of immigrants suspected of being in the United States illegally, as part of a broader and more aggressive deportation campaign.
James Percival, general counsel at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, criticized the ruling on X (formerly Twitter), describing it as “naked judicial activism in service of an anti-American, open borders agenda.”
Earlier guidance restricted courthouse arrests to specific situations such as national security concerns, imminent threats, and “hot pursuit” of individuals considered a risk to public safety, according to the ruling. The judge concluded that the Trump administration did not give adequately “reasoned explanations” for reversing those policies, as required under the Administrative Procedure Act.
“For 80 years, Congress has commanded federal agencies to think before they act,” the judge wrote in his ruling, adding that the law requires “an agency at least provide sound reasons for following its chosen course”.
