A federal judge in New York on Monday largely barred U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from making civil immigration arrests at several Manhattan immigration courthouses, ordering agents to revert to narrower Biden-era enforcement rules while a broader lawsuit plays out. The ruling from U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel came after government lawyers admitted they had given the court a "material mistaken statement of fact" about the scope of a key ICE enforcement memo.
The order does not shut down courthouse enforcement entirely. ICE may still act on national security threats, imminent violence, hot pursuit situations, and threats to criminal evidence. But the practical effect is clear: agents who had been detaining immigrants immediately after their mandatory court hearings now face a judicially imposed leash, one crafted from a Biden-era policy the current administration had already rescinded.
For an administration that has made interior enforcement a centerpiece of its immigration strategy, the ruling is another example of a single district judge reaching into federal operations and dictating how and where officers can do their jobs. And the government's own stumble in court gave the judge the opening he needed.
The backstory matters. Earlier this year, Castel declined to halt the Trump administration's courthouse enforcement policy. Immigrant advocacy groups had sued, arguing the administration's approach effectively turned mandatory immigration hearings into arrest operations. Castel wasn't persuaded, at first.
Then, as Fox News Digital reported, Justice Department lawyers informed the court in March that they needed to correct prior claims about a May 2025 ICE courthouse enforcement memo. The government had previously suggested the memo applied to immigration courts. It did not.
The government later acknowledged the guidance "does not and has never applied" to immigration courts. That admission changed the legal landscape. Castel said the reversal justified revisiting his earlier ruling "to correct a clear error and prevent a manifest injustice."
In other words, the government told the court one thing, the court relied on it, and then the government said never mind. That is not a recipe for judicial trust.
Castel wrote that plaintiffs were likely to succeed in arguing the administration acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it rescinded the 2021 ICE policy restricting courthouse arrests. His reasoning: the administration had not adequately explained how its new policy applied to immigration courts.
The temporary order forces ICE officers back to the narrower Biden-era framework at several Manhattan immigration courthouses while the lawsuit continues. It is not a permanent injunction. And it preserves four categories of enforcement action, national security threats, imminent violence, hot pursuit, and evidence protection, that remain available to agents.
This latest judicial intervention fits a broader pattern of federal courts blocking Trump immigration enforcement measures one courthouse at a time. The administration has faced a steady stream of district-level orders limiting executive authority on immigration, often from judges in jurisdictions that are themselves sanctuary-friendly.
Amy Belsher, director of immigrants' rights litigation at the NYCLU, framed the ruling as a major victory:
"Today's ruling is an enormous win for noncitizen New Yorkers seeking to safely attend their immigration court proceedings."
The word "safely" does a lot of work in that sentence. The implication is that enforcing immigration law at the place where immigration cases are heard is itself a form of danger. That framing inverts the basic logic of law enforcement: you go where the people you're looking for are required to appear.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE for comment but did not immediately receive responses. The silence is notable. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has been vocal elsewhere about the administration's enforcement posture, saying in a recent Fox News appearance that "Democrats are more interested in protecting the criminals than protecting the constituents."
Whether or not one accepts that characterization, the political dynamic is real. New York City officials including NYC Comptroller Brad Lander and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams visited immigration court to observe proceedings amid ongoing detentions, a gesture that reads less like oversight and more like political theater aimed at signaling solidarity with those facing removal.
The scale of enforcement at Manhattan's immigration courts has been substantial. ICE agents detained dozens of immigrants inside the Federal Plaza courthouse in New York City on June 26 following their legal proceedings. On July 23, 2025, federal agents detained an individual after that person exited immigration court at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building.
Members of the NYPD Strategic Response Group entered 26 Federal Plaza, where immigration court is located, on June 8, 2025. The presence of city police at a federal immigration facility underscores the jurisdictional tension that has defined New York's relationship with federal enforcement agencies throughout this administration.
The D.C. Circuit has separately blocked a Trump asylum executive order, adding to the growing list of judicial constraints on the White House's immigration agenda. Each ruling narrows the operational space available to federal agents tasked with enforcing laws Congress wrote and the executive branch is constitutionally obligated to carry out.
There is a reasonable debate about the wisdom of arresting people at courthouses. Critics argue it discourages immigrants from appearing for their hearings, which ultimately makes enforcement harder. Supporters counter that immigration courts are the one place where people with removal orders or pending cases are guaranteed to show up, and that letting them walk out the door only to disappear into sanctuary cities defeats the purpose of the hearing itself.
But this ruling was not really about that policy debate. It turned on a procedural failure: the government's own lawyers gave the court bad information, then had to walk it back. Castel did not need to reach the merits of courthouse enforcement to find grounds for intervention. The administration handed him the tool.
That is the most frustrating part for anyone who supports vigorous immigration enforcement. The legal architecture exists. The statutory authority is there. The administration has hired more than 140 new immigration judges to speed deportation proceedings. But none of that matters if government lawyers cannot keep their facts straight in front of a federal judge.
Castel's finding that the administration likely acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" in rescinding the 2021 Biden-era courthouse restrictions is a legal term of art under administrative law. It means the government failed to explain its reasoning adequately, not that the policy itself is illegal. That distinction matters. A better-constructed administrative record, a cleaner rollout, and accurate representations in court could have produced a different outcome.
Meanwhile, the political fight over immigration enforcement funding continues on Capitol Hill. Three House Democrats recently broke with their leadership to vote with Republicans on DHS funding, a sign that even within the opposition party, the appetite for open-ended obstruction of enforcement has limits.
The ruling is temporary. The broader lawsuit will proceed, and the administration can appeal or seek to build a stronger administrative record to justify its courthouse enforcement posture. The four exceptions, national security, imminent violence, hot pursuit, and evidence protection, leave ICE with some room to operate even under the current order.
But the immediate effect is that immigration enforcement at Manhattan courthouses has been pulled back to a framework designed by the Biden administration, a framework the current administration rescinded precisely because it considered it inadequate. The judge did not order that outcome because he agrees with Biden-era policy. He ordered it because the government's own lawyers made his job easy.
Open questions remain. The case name and docket number for the broader lawsuit are not publicly detailed in current reporting. Which specific Manhattan courthouses are covered, and how ICE will adjust its operational posture in the interim, are matters the administration will need to address quickly.
When the government can't keep its own story straight in court, judges don't need to be hostile to hand down unfavorable rulings. They just need to read the transcript.