Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Biden-Appointed Judge Blocks Key Part Of Trump’s Immigration Policy

Wikimedia Commons/Public/Joe Gratz

A judge appointed by former President Joe Biden made a nationwide decision Tuesday to stop federal agents from making arrests in immigration courthouses.

California-based federal Judge P. Casey Pitts stated in the ruling that the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy allowing civil immigration arrests at courthouses violates the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).

Pitts stated in his ruling that the new 2025 ICE policies “eliminate previous limits on ICE agents’ civil enforcement activities (i.e., arrests) at immigration courthouses,” according to the court document. Pitts argued that this new policy went against the APA’s “demands that an agency at least provide sound reasons for following its chosen course.”

The 2025 ICE policy broadens the scope for the agency’s action in these courthouses, allowing officers to take action regarding “[o]ther aliens encountered during a civil immigration enforcement action in or near a courthouse, such as family members or friends accompanying the target alien to court appearances or serving as a witness in a proceeding.” Under the policy, these immigrants, and not just immigrants who pose threats or have remained in the U.S. after being removed, “may be subject to civil immigration enforcement action on a case-by-case basis considering the totality of the circumstances.”

Pitts ruled the policy to be “arbitrary and capricious in contravention of the APA,” according to the court document.

The Trump administration had enabled federal law enforcement agents to take individuals who were appearing before immigration judges into custody, according to CBS News.

“When a judge sentences a defendant, the defendant is taken into custody. If an alien is ordered removed by an immigration judge, the same should happen. A district judge ordering otherwise is naked judicial activism in service of an anti-American, open borders agenda,” said Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The ruling came following a class-action lawsuit which challenged ICE and the Executive Office for Immigration Review over an increase in immigration arrests in courthouses and longer holding times for detention in short-term holding facilities, The New York Times (NYT) reported.

The lawsuit challenged multiple policies enacted by the Trump administration, according to CBS News.

The decision is likely to be challenged, as the nationwide decision to block an executive policy came from a lower court, according to the NYT.