U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California also limited the length of time the Trump administration can hold noncitizens in temporary detention facilities.
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A federal judge in California issued an order on Tuesday, June 23, blocking the Trump administration from arresting non-Americans in immigration court and limiting the length of time non-Americans can be held in short-term facilities.
U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts’ order comes in response to a lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California over Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arresting noncitizens participating in immigration court proceedings. The lawsuit challenges authorities’ practice of holding noncitizens in facilities without beds or other suitable accommodations, sometimes for days.
In his 71-page order, Pitts criticized the Trump administration’s policy of making arrests in immigration courts as having a “chilling effect” that could weaken the nation’s immigration system. He rejected arguments that immigrants with solid legal cases need not fear the Trump administration’s directive to arrest them in court.
“The proper functioning of the immigration system depends on the participation of such noncitizens in scheduled removal proceedings,” Pitt wrote. “Thus, the chilling effect of court arrests can undermine the proper enforcement of immigration law, even if it only affects noncitizens who are likely to be removed at the end of the process.”
Pitt also noted that witnesses testified that President Trump’s policy of holding immigrants in facilities intended only for 12-hour detention resulted in “inhumane” conditions. Noncitizens have testified about similar conditions in presumably temporary ICE detention facilities across the country.
A top lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security called the judge’s order “judicial activism.”
“When a judge sentences a defendant, the defendant is detained. The same thing should happen when an alien is ordered deported by an immigration judge. For a district judge to order otherwise is a naked judicial exercise in anti-American, open-borders politics,” James Percival, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement.
ICE under the Trump administration has widely used the practice of arresting noncitizens who regularly appear in immigration court. The case, filed in California, said the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration Enforcement Division had turned “immigration courts and routine reporting check-ins into dragnet arrest operations.”
The regime also widely holds noncitizens in facilities that lack beds and have limited access to food and toilets, sometimes for several days.
Immigration advocates across the country praised Pitt’s ruling.
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) called it “great news.”
“Immigrants who come to court the ‘right way’ are being targeted by this administration,” El Paso area representatives said in a statement. “I am very happy to see this blatantly illegal and cruel policy abolished.”
