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US judge in NY indefinitely blocks ICE from making arrests at immigration courthouses
By
Arya Sundaram
Published Oct 1, 2026
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Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
By
Arya Sundaram
Published Oct 1, 2026
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A federal judge in Manhattan has largely blocked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from making arrests at immigration courthouses in New York City and across the country, ruling the Trump administration policy authorizing the arrests was invalid.
The decision indefinitely extends a temporary judicial stay issued in May that mostly paused ICE arrests at the city’s immigration courthouses. It also follows a similar ruling by a federal district court in California that largely banned such arrests across the country.
District Judge P. Kevin Castel said federal officials were “arbitrary and capricious” in widely permitting ICE arrests at immigration courthouses and departing from past agency policy that made courthouse arrests rare.
In a 36-page ruling issued on Wednesday, Castel wrote, ICE has "offered no explanation of why the exercise of unfettered discretion by ICE officers with no guidance whatsoever was a better option" than its previous policy.
Under previous President Joe Biden, such arrests were only allowed in exceptional circumstances, such as when there is a public safety or national security threat or an imminent risk of violence. Castel’s ruling vacated the Trump administration’s 2025 “ICE Courthouse Arrest Policy,” as applied to immigration courthouses, leaving the prior limitations on arrests in place.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In previous statements to the press, federal officials have justified the courthouse arrests as a safer, more controlled alternative to making arrests in the street, in part because individuals are screened by security personnel before entering the federal property.
Courthouse arrests have been a key feature of the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration. In the spring of 2025, federal agents in New York City and across the country began detaining immigrants en masse after they left immigration court hearings — at times, tearing targeted immigrants from the arms of family members, in scenes widely shared on social media.
Immigration advocacy groups — including The Door and African Communities Together, who brought the initial lawsuit on which Castel ruled — have decried the arrests as a violation of due process rights. They say the arrests deter immigrants from attending their mandatory hearings and disrupt court processes and the administration of justice.
“Today’s ruling is an enormous win for every noncitizen seeking to safely attend their immigration court proceedings,” Amy Belsher, director of immigrants’ rights litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union and an attorney in the case, said in a statement.
Belsher added, “For too long, we watched masked, often armed, ICE officers ambush noncitizens in courthouse hallways, throw immigrants to the ground, and tear sobbing children from their parents. But with today’s order, the Court made clear: ICE’s cruel, unjustified policy of conducting mass immigration arrests in courthouses is unlawful and cannot stand.”
Wednesday’s decision and the stay in May reversed a previous ruling by Castel that sided with the government and allowed arrests at immigration courthouses to continue.
The turnabout came after attorneys for the federal government in March revealed in a highly unusual letter that an ICE memo from May 2025 that they used to justify the arrests did not, in fact, apply to immigration courthouses.
The letter said the attorneys intended to “correct a material mistaken statement of fact that the Government made to the court and plaintiffs” due to false information provided by ICE.
Castel’s opinion took note of a 2025 Supreme Court ruling that district courts lack authority to issue nationwide injunctions.
He wrote it “certainly could be” that vacating a federal agency’s action in an administrative procedure review — as his order does — raises the very same concerns as a nationwide injunction.
But Castel said he was bound to follow controlling precedent in the Second Circuit — “as of the date of this Opinion” — for when a federal agency violates administrative procedures.
Castel wrote that federal law has long authorized judges to vacate “unlawful agency actions rather than merely providing injunctive relief.”
Tagged
Race And Justice Unit
immigration and customs enforcement
new jersey
new york
Arya Sundaram
Arya is a reporter covering race and justice. Got a tip? Email: [email protected] or reach Arya on Signal at 512-650-8767.
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