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A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from making widespread immigration arrests in Washington, D.C., unless agents obtain warrants or have probable cause that the target is an imminent flight risk.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell granted a preliminary injunction requested by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other civil liberties and immigrants’ rights groups in a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security.
Howell said the plaintiffs had “established a substantial likelihood of an unlawful policy and practice by defendants of conducting warrantless civil immigration arrests without probable cause.”
“Defendants’ systemic failure to apply the probable cause standard, including the failure to consider escape risk, directly violates” immigration law and DHS’ implementing regulations, the judge said.
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Federal agents generally need to have an administrative warrant to make civil immigration arrests, but the Immigration and Nationality Act allows arrests without a warrant when agents have probable cause to suspect the person is in the U.S. illegally and is likely to flee before one can be obtained, Howell said in the ruling.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that federal officers were often patrolling and setting up checkpoints in D.C. neighborhoods with large numbers of Latino immigrants, and stopping and arresting people indiscriminately.
The attorneys provided sworn declarations from people who were arrested without warrants or a required flight risk assessment. They also pointed to public statements by administration officials that they said proved the government was not following the probable cause standard.
Attorneys representing the administration denied having a policy permitting warrantless arrests without probable cause of a flight risk.
On top of blocking the policy, Howell ordered any agent who conducts a warrantless civil immigration arrest in the nation’s capital to document “the specific, particularized facts that supported the agent’s pre-arrest probable cause to believe that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.”
The judge also required the administration to submit the documentation to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.
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The ruling is similar to two other decisions in Colorado and California in cases that were also brought by the ACLU.
Another judge prohibited immigration agents from targeting people based solely on factors such as their race, language, job or location after concluding that agents were carrying out indiscriminate stops. The Supreme Court lifted the restraining order in that case in September.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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