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By Lawrence Agbo
A federal judge in California has barred the Trump administration from arresting migrants at immigration courts across the United States.
The ruling, delivered on Tuesday by US District Judge P. Casey Pitts, blocks a practice in which Homeland Security agents waited outside immigration courts to detain migrants after their asylum hearings.
The tactic became more common after President Donald Trump returned to office, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers reportedly arresting migrants as they left court buildings.
Many migrants facing immigration proceedings are required to attend hearings, while failing to appear can in some cases lead to deportation orders. Critics argued that the arrests left them with the difficult choice of attending court and risking detention or missing their hearing and facing possible removal.
Judge Pitts ruled that the policy breached the Administrative Procedure Act, describing it as “arbitrary and capricious.”
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He said ICE and the Executive Office for Immigration Review failed to provide adequate reasons for implementing the policy.
The judge also held that the presence of immigration agents around courtrooms had created a “chilling” effect, discouraging migrants from appearing for proceedings.
Homeland Security general counsel James Percival criticised the decision, arguing that people ordered deported by immigration judges should be treated in the same way as criminal defendants convicted in court.
“A district judge ordering otherwise is naked judicial activism in service of an anti-American, open borders agenda,” Percival said in a post on X.
The decision is the latest legal setback for Trump’s immigration enforcement drive, which has sought to expand arrests and deportations of undocumented migrants.
