ICE Must Halt Courthouse Arrests in Northern California, Hawaii

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement must stop from engaging in arrests of noncitizens at immigration courthouses across Northern California and Hawaii, a federal judge ruled.

Judge P. Casey Pitts said ICE’s new policy under the Trump administration to conduct widespread civil arrests of migrants at courthouses is “insufficiently reasoned” and likely violates the Administrative Procedure Act.

The judge’s order blocks ICE’s expanded courthouse arrest guidance for the agency’s San Francisco area of responsibility, which includes all of Northern California as well as Hawaii and the territories of Guam and Saipan.

Pitts, who sits on the US District Court for the Northern District of California, said the government had failed to draw a “logical connection between ICE’s rationales and its expansion of civil arrests at immigration courthouses.”

The arrests have also created a widespread chilling effect, causing noncitizens to avoid immigration courthouses even when they must appear for removal proceedings. The judge rejected the government’s argument that the arrests must be conducted in a safe and orderly manner.

“It is the desire to avoid arrest entirely, not merely to avoid disorderly or disruptive arrests, that disincentivizes noncitizens from appearing in immigration court,” Pitts said.

ICE justified the expanded arrest policy by arguing it can reduce safety risks to the public by targeting migrants in a controlled environment in the courthouse, and that the arrests are needed when local jurisdictions refuse to cooperate with the agency. But Pitts was again unconvinced, finding that ICE’s previous arrest guidance would have solved both of those concerns.

“To the extent ICE’s new policies aim to enable apprehension of the narrow class of noncitizens who have been in state or local criminal custody, the agency could have used far more tailored means to target that class,” Pitts said.

Pitts had previously certified a class of similarly situated noncitizens who face arrest at immigration courthouses. He said the US Supreme Court’s ruling this summer that limits nationwide injunctions doesn’t apply to cases involving the Administrative Procedure Act. But he said the order would only apply to ICE’s San Francisco area of responsibility because that would afford complete relief to the class members.

The case is Sequen v. Albarran, N.D. Cal., No. 5:25-cv-06487, 12/24/25.