Washington– A federal judge said Thursday that instructions received by immigration enforcement officers must be done Arresting civilian immigrants without judicial orders It does not meet the criteria for probable cause and should not be used as evidence.
In continuing her preliminary injunction in December, U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell in Washington, D.C. said that “when making civil immigration arrests without a warrant in this district, defendants may not rely on the probable cause standard or analytical approach set forth in the five-page memo” from the former acting director of the Bureau of Immigration. Immigration and customs.
Among the issues, the judge wrote that the instructions failed to direct officers to evaluate a person’s ties to the community before concluding that the person poses a flight risk and therefore should be detained immediately.
The action is the latest step in a lawsuit filed by four noncitizens and the Washington nonprofit CASA in 2025 challenging their arrests during immigration sweeps by the federal agency, which were part of a law enforcement crackdown ordered by President Donald Trump.
Howell granted another request from prosecutors for more records to help explain how the policy was implemented, but she rejected some of their arguments and said the government had complied with its preliminary injunction on some issues.
the Department of Homeland Security He responded to questions about the order issued Thursday in an email, saying, “ICE has the authority to make lawful arrests.”
“Law enforcement officers use ‘reasonable suspicion’ to investigate immigration status and probable cause to make arrests consistent with the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the DHS email said. “The Supreme Court has already acquitted us of these practices.”
“We basically got what we were asking for,” said Madeline Gates, associate counsel at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. The ruling “reaffirms that federal agents must abide by the law. They do not obtain authorization to conduct immigration enforcement.”
“This particular case is about what happens at the beginning, before an arrest is made,” she said.
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This release corrects an earlier version that misspelled Madeleine Gates.