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The Trump administration admitted in a court filing that it improperly relied on an ICE memo to justify arrests at immigration courthouses as part of an ongoing federal case brought by groups seeking to block the tactic.
Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that they used the memo, titled “2025 ICE Guidance,” to defend the Trump administration’s deployment of ICE agents in courthouses, which led to numerous arrests of immigrants attending hearings.
The memo stated that “ICE officers or agents may conduct civil immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses when they have credible information” that a targeted person is “present at a specific location.”
But, the Justice Department said in the court filing, the memo “does not and has never applied to civil immigration enforcement actions in or near” immigration courts.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a filing Wednesday, immigrant rights groups that filed suit challenging the administration’s tactics of arresting immigrants during mandatory court hearings said the implications of the Justice Department’s disclosure “are far-reaching.”
In a statement, Amy Belsher, plaintiffs’ attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union, called the development a “shocking revelation.”
“This is yet another example of ICE’s blatant disregard for the lives of immigrants in this country,” Belsher said. “It is now clearer than ever that there is no justification for ambushing and arresting people who come to court. »
The government stated in its filing that he became aware of the error Tuesday when he received an email sent to ICE staff as a “reminder that the May 27, 2025 guidance does not apply to Executive Office for Immigration Review (immigration) courts, regardless of location.”
Prosecutors did not explain why they also received the ICE email.
Prosecutors said they informed the immigration rights groups that brought the case about the error.
The U.S. District Judge presiding over the case, Kevin Castel, had rejected the groups’ request to block the arrests at the administration’s courthouse. In the ruling, Castel said ICE guidelines “authorize arrests in or near immigration court.”
In its Tuesday filing, the Justice Department repeatedly apologized to Castel for a “materially erroneous statement of fact that the Government made to the Court and to Plaintiffs” when he argued on behalf of the immigration agency.
“Based on our discussions with ICE today, this regrettable error appears to have occurred due to an error by the agency’s attorney,” prosecutors wrote.
As of Wednesday evening, Castel had not entered a response to the public role in the case.
Because of this error, prosecutors acknowledged, the court’s September 12 opinion and order as well as plaintiffs’ briefs “will need to be revisited and reconsidered for the court to rule on plaintiffs’ PPA.” [Administrative Procedure Act] claims against ICE on the merits.”
Prosecutors said they received approval from ICE attorneys before filing each brief and making oral arguments to the court and plaintiffs in the case.
Even though the government withdrew parts of its brief that relied on the ICE memo, prosecutors wrote, the withdrawal “does not affect its arguments that ICE’s immigration courthouse arrests do not violate any so-called common law privilege against courthouse arrests.”
The Trump administration’s tactic of detaining immigrants during scheduled hearings has sparked outcry. In May, Dylan Contreras, a New York public school student with no criminal history, was arrested after a routine hearing. Contreras, who was 20 at the time and seeking a green card after arriving from Venezuela, was released this month.
DHS said Contreras entered the United States during the Biden administration and that ICE “followed the law and placed these illegal aliens on expedited removal, as they always should have been.”
His lawyers argued that Contreras was seeking asylum.
Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York said the“What should have been a time for him to focus on finishing high school turned into ten long months of isolation, after he was taken into custody during what was supposed to be a routine immigration hearing last May.”
