Judge vacates administrations policies, finding actions of ICE and another government arm ‘arbitrary and capricious’

A federal ⁠judge in California vacated the ⁠Trump administration’s ​nationwide policies expanding arrests at immigration courthouses and the duration for detaining noncitizens in short-term facilities, finding the actions of US Immigration ⁠and Customs Enforcement and another government arm “arbitrary and capricious”.

US district judge P Casey Pitts of the northern district of California on Tuesday vacated ICE’s ⁠policies that had rescinded previous strictures on arrests at immigration courthouses and allowed detainees to ​be held in short-term cells for up ‌to 72 hours. He ‌did the same for a similar policy undertaken by the US Department of Justice’s ‌executive office for immigration review that removed limits on courthouse arrests.

The 71-page ruling, issued in a case brought by an asylum seeker arrested upon departing a routine hearing at a San Francisco immigration court, struck down key parts of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies. Judge Pitts, appointed by Joe Biden, in effect reinstated Biden-era policies ‌that limited arrests at immigration courthouses to narrow circumstances and capped detentions in short-term facilities to 12 hours.