DC Circuit Rules Against Marshals Immigration Arrest Powers

A federal appeals court found the US Marshals Service doesn’t have authority to detain people charged in Washington’s local courthouse over suspected immigration violations, but still threw out an earlier ruling after finding these arrests couldn’t be blocked for a broad group.

The US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held Friday that the US Marshals didn’t have authority to arrest an immigrant at the courthouse because the agency’s officers hadn’t undergone the required training to make those apprehensions. The US Marshals Service, part of the Justice Department, is tasked with protecting federal judges and courthouses.

“Arresting aliens is not a function of an immigration officer who has not received the relevant training,” Senior US Circuit Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg wrote for the panel.

Still, the panel found that the lower court didn’t have the authority to grant relief to an entire class of individuals who could be affected, citing a recent Supreme Court ruling, and sent the case back to the lower court ruling to rethink.

The judges also took into account the Trump administration’s January memo that authorized Marshals Service and other Justice Department officers to arrest immigrants, which was issued after arguments were held in September. However, they found that this new order was not “meaningfully different” from earlier orders on this authority when it comes to the training requirement.

The case was initially brought by a Washington resident, referred to in court filings as N.S., who was arrested in January 2020 for robbery and property destruction. He was ordered released by a magistrate judge after he was arraigned, but the US Marshals Service held him under a request from immigration authorities known as a detainer.

Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia permanently blocked the US Marshals Services in 2021 from holding a class of criminal defendants at the DC superior court for suspected civil immigration offenses. Lamberth reasoned that regulations authorizing the marshals to execute federal arrest warrants don’t give those officers permission to carry out an immigration detainer, which is a “mere request.”

The government appealed, and the D.C. Circuit panel heard oral argument in September 2024.

The case is N.S. v. Robert Dixon, D.C. Cir., No. 21-05275, 6/27/25.