Overview
- U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts barred ICE and the Justice Department’s immigration courts from conducting sweeping civil arrests at immigration courthouses in the agency’s San Francisco Area of Responsibility.
- The ruling found officials offered no reasoned justification for the renewed courthouse-arrest policy and concluded the practice chills noncitizens from attending removal hearings.
- The order blocks agents from lying in wait at routine hearings and effectively restores the prior practice in the region that treated courts as sensitive locations.
- The injunction’s scope is limited to Northern and Central California, reflecting Supreme Court guidance on nationwide injunctions, and the administration has said it will seek 9th Circuit review.
- Justice Department data show removals in absentia have more than doubled this year to about 4,177 per month, with over 50,000 asylum seekers ordered removed after missed hearings, and a Manhattan judge reached the opposite conclusion in a similar case.