DOJ says it erroneously relied on ICE memo justifying immigration courthouse arrests

A federal judge Thursday ordered the Trump administration to preserve all records after the Justice Department said it made a “factual error” in a case challenging the ability to arrest migrants as they appeared for immigration court hearings.

Justice Department attorneys on Wednesday informed U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Castel that they had been given a faulty interpretation by a lawyer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) about a memo the agency asserted gave its officers the power to make courthouse arrests.

The May 2025 ICE memo, however, “does not and has never applied to civil immigration enforcement actions in or near Executive Office for Immigration Review (‘EOIR’) immigration courts,” prosecutors wrote.

The admission could unwind a case where Castel previously denied the plaintiff’s request to block courthouse arrests, citing the ICE memo. 

The filings from prosecutors include an email sent on March 19 to ICE agents reminding them that the memo “does not” permit arrests at immigration courts, though it does allow them at regular courthouses.

Prosecutors apologized to the judge, but said they still believe the crux of their case stands.

Attorneys for the migrants, however, called the ICE memo “the core of the government’s defense” and said “the implications of this development are far-reaching.”

“For over a year, ICE has claimed that a 2025 memorandum authorized and justified their devastating policy of conducting mass arrests at immigration courts. In today’s shocking revelation, the government is now admitting that this document — which the Court relied on to deny our clients relief — does not and never has authorized these courthouses arrests,” Amy Belsher, the New York Civil Liberties Union’s director of immigrants’ rights litigation, said in a statement.

“It is yet again another example of ICE’s brazen disregard for the lives of immigrants in this country. It is now clearer than ever that there is no justification for ambushing and arresting people who are showing up to court.”

Arrests at courthouses over the summer sparked widespread confusion, as ICE prosecutors would voluntarily offer to dismiss a case, only to have an officer standing by to arrest migrants as they exited the courtroom, believing the government was no longer seeking to remove them.

“Hundreds, if not thousands, of noncitizens …are dutifully attending their immigration hearings across the country only to have the government summarily dismiss those proceedings, abruptly arrest and detain them, and seek their immediate removal,” attorneys for migrants wrote when the case was first filed last August.

“These profoundly unfair practices undermine the rule of law and the integrity of immigration courts by effectively turning mandatory court hearings into traps.”

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