And why did this take so long, exactly? It should have been done months ago. Think of the stories we’ve seen and realize there have to be hundreds more that we don’t know about. We’ve seen plenty of proof of ICE’s tactics, indoors and out. We’ve seen the brutality of men hiding behind masks. We’ve seen broken people dragged away. We’ve seen an apartment complex being raided that looked more like something from SEAL training, and children being dragged out without being clothed first. Well, it’s not all getting fixed, and we can’t let those stories die, but courthouse arrests have now been severely limited. Why did it take so long? With gratitude for Raw Story:
A federal judge has vacated the Trump administration’s policy of arresting immigrants at immigration courthouses, finding Immigration and Customs Enforcement acted with a “complete lack of decision-making.” U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California issued the order wiping out both ICE’s courthouse-arrest policies and a separate waiver that had allowed the agency to hold detainees in short-term cells for up to 72 hours. The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of asylum seekers arrested at San Francisco’s immigration court while attending required hearings.
Yep. Arrested for doing *exactly* what they are supposed to do. Well, ok, the ICE version of arrested. 3 or more brawny men dragging someone down the hall. The immigrants are outnumbered and outdone by this happening out of the blue. And we had a judge who was arrested, charged, and convicted for “interference” with ICE when she was yelling at them while waiting outside her courtroom. She lost her judgeship. She’s now a felon for trying to protect an immigrant. Not all the details are known, but what she believed in and what she worked for are gone.
Since January 2025, ICE has made courthouse arrests a cornerstone of its mass deportation strategy. The administration developed a novel approach: dismissing immigrants’ cases and immediately arresting them at court — funneling people into expedited removal, a fast-track deportation process with fewer due process protections. The tactic at first caught judges and lawyers off guard. ICE had revoked its 2021 guidance — which restricted courthouse arrests to narrow circumstances — without issuing any replacement rules specifically for immigration courts. The 2025 policies “do not mention immigration courthouses at all,” Pitts wrote, leaving agents operating under no internal limits whatsoever.
Yes, ICE/CBP and DHS had a good scam going on there. Nice and easy to grab immigrants to try to achieve Stephen Miller’s impossible quotas. They are still impossible, even after 2 US citizens were killed in cold blood. Nothing changed, and it should have. It should have. If anything, it made them worse. It’s easy to be a brute when your identity is hidden. They seem to still be fighting about that part. Perhaps, one of these years, they won’t be able to wear the masks anymore.
ICE’s rationales for the new policy, the court found, were “unconvincing” as applied to immigration courts. The court called the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s parallel policy change “based on a false premise” and labeled the agency’s dismissal of chilling-effect concerns “a non sequitur.” In a footnote, the judge added: “Puzzlingly, the government also suggests that ICE’s courthouse-arrest policies are committed to agency discretion.” The ruling reinstates ICE’s 2021 guidance, which permitted courthouse arrests only in narrow circumstances such as national security threats or imminent danger.
The question now is, will it stick? There have been times when a court has ordered something, and it gets ignored, such as, oh, two planes heading to CECOT when they were supposed to be on the ground. Reverting to that 2021 guidance should at least help in courthouses – assuming ICE doesn’t have a gang of thugs sitting at every entrance/exit. But it’s a start, and that’s something. Let’s hope other judges can do the same. Actually, just discovered this *is* nationwide.
It’s now 3 am and I should go to sleep. See you tomorrow! Or, rather, later today.
Friends, I know everybody begs you for money. I promise you that, of all the outlets bugging you for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest-working. We’re a bunch of old, disabled people, except one writer in his mid-50s. But the rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the ability to continue our quest to tell the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
