ICE HANDCUFFED Nationwide!

A Biden-appointed judge has just tied ICE’s hands at immigration courts nationwide, and conservatives are right to see both a legal overreach and a direct hit on border enforcement.

Story Snapshot

Biden Judge P. Casey Pitts blocked ICE from arresting illegal immigrants in or near immigration courts across the country.
The ruling vacates a Trump policy and brands it “arbitrary and capricious” under federal administrative law.
Nationwide scope clashes with Supreme Court warnings about coast‑to‑coast injunctions from single district judges.
ICE still has clear arrest power in federal law, setting up a major showdown on appeal.

Biden Judge Blocks ICE at Immigration Courts Nationwide

A federal judge in San Francisco, P. Casey Pitts, a Biden appointee, has blocked Immigration and Customs Enforcement from making civil immigration arrests at immigration courts anywhere in the country.^[2] Pitts struck down Trump administration policies that allowed ICE officers to detain illegal immigrants in courthouse hallways and expanded short term detention time limits.^[2] His seventy one page opinion vacates the policies nationwide and stops ICE from arresting people at immigration courts for the very immigration violations that brought them there.^[1]

Pitts said the Trump era changes broke the Administrative Procedure Act because agencies did not properly explain why they scrapped older limits on courthouse arrests and detention.^[2] He called the shift an “irrational departure” from earlier rules that restricted arrests to rare cases like national security threats.^[3] He also leaned on claims that arrests at court have a “chilling effect,” scaring migrants away from their hearings and hurting participation in the immigration system.^[3]^[5]

Legal Power Struggle: Statute vs. Judge-Made Limits

Federal immigration law gives officers broad power to arrest without a warrant when they have reason to believe someone is removable and may escape, including in public places like courthouses.^[14] Earlier lawsuits trying to block courthouse arrests often lost on those grounds, with judges ruling that federal law preempts state efforts to wall off courthouses from federal officers.^[10] The Manhattan case this spring only paused arrests at three New York City locations while a lawsuit continues, not nationwide.^[21]

Pitts went further than that New York judge by issuing a coast to coast injunction, even though the Supreme Court has warned lower courts about nationwide orders that act like policy vetoes.^[6] Legal experts already point to a 2022 Supreme Court decision in an immigration case that limited nationwide injunctions against the executive branch, expecting the high court to cut this ruling back if Trump’s Justice Department appeals.^[2]^[6] That clash will decide whether one Biden judge can freeze a key enforcement tool for every ICE officer in America.

Courthouse Arrests, Due Process Claims, and Public Safety

For years, progressive groups and open borders activists have targeted courthouse arrests as “weaponizing” the courts and undermining due process.^[23] Lawsuits in Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, New York, and now California argue that grabbing people at court scares witnesses, victims, and defendants from showing up.^[3]^[19] Some suits claim the Trump policies denied migrants a fair chance to pursue their cases and turned courthouses into traps for fast track deportation.^[17]^[22]

Supporters of strong enforcement counter that a courthouse is exactly where lawbreakers should be easiest and safest to arrest, especially when local sanctuary rules shield them elsewhere. The Department of Homeland Security’s own “sensitive locations” guidance never put courthouses in the same category as schools or hospitals.^[14] That means officers have always had clear authority to act there, and many see this ruling as a judge trying to write new limits into the law that Congress never passed. For communities hit by crime tied to illegal immigration, that feels less like “due process” and more like deliberate handcuffing of federal agents.

DOJ Admissions, Activist Pressure, and What Comes Next

The push against courthouse arrests gained steam after the Justice Department admitted this spring that ICE lawyers wrongly relied on a 2025 memo that did not actually cover immigration courts when defending arrests in New York.^[5] That admission led a Manhattan federal judge to grant a stay that largely bars ICE from civil immigration arrests at three key New York immigration court sites while a case moves forward.^[5]^[21] In that instance, the court essentially forced ICE back to its stricter 2021 guidance for those local courts only.^[21]

🚨JUST IN🚨

A Biden-appointed judge has just struck down ICE’s 2025 courthouse arrest expansion and 72-hour detention policy nationwide.

Judge Casey Pitts claims ICE & EOIR acted arbitrarily by dropping earlier conclusions that these arrests discourage court appearances,… pic.twitter.com/RRL8YVMaew

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) June 23, 2026

Pitts used similar themes but then jumped to a nationwide remedy, which immigrant advocacy groups quickly celebrated as a major blow to Trump’s enforcement agenda.^[1]^[5] The Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel blasted the move as “naked judicial activism” serving an open borders agenda, signaling that the administration will fight to restore ICE’s full authority on appeal. For conservatives, this fight is about more than one arrest policy. It is about whether elected leaders or single district judges get to set the nation’s border and immigration enforcement rules, and about whether the rule of law still means that people who break it can be arrested wherever the law allows.