SAN JOSE, Calif. — In a sweeping rebuke of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies, a federal judge has struck down nationwide policies authorizing arrests at immigration courthouses and permitting prolonged detention in short-term holding facilities, ruling that federal officials failed to provide legally required justifications for the abrupt policy changes. The decision restores longstanding protections limiting courthouse arrests and reinstates the 12-hour cap on detention in temporary ICE holding rooms.
The ruling in Pablo Sequen v. Albarran, issued Monday by U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California, vacates policies implemented by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Executive Office for Immigration Review that had enabled thousands of arrests at immigration courthouses nationwide beginning in May 2025.
The court found the Trump administration’s courthouse arrest policy unlawful and vacated it nationwide.
The court’s order follows a motion for summary judgment filed Jan. 29, 2026, by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and a coalition of civil rights organizations seeking to block the administration’s enforcement policies on a nationwide basis. Judge Pitts granted full vacatur under Section 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act, concluding that ICE and EOIR failed to engage in reasoned decision-making before abandoning longstanding policies governing courthouse arrests and detention practices.
The ruling restores prior policies barring courthouse arrests except in rare, exigent circumstances and applies nationwide. It also restores the prohibition on holding immigrants in temporary holding facilities for more than 12 hours after invalidating ICE’s June 2025 nationwide waiver.
Judge Pitts wrote that “the lack of connection between ICE’s stated rationales for the 2025 courthouse-arrest policies and the expansion of arrests at immigration courthouses results not from merely unreasoned decision making but a complete lack of decisionmaking.”
The opinion concluded that ICE and EOIR “failed to provide reasoned explanations for their actions,” making the challenged policies “arbitrary and capricious in contravention of the APA.” The court therefore granted plaintiffs’ motions for partial summary judgment and vacated the challenged policies in full.
The ruling also rejected the administration’s assertion that immigrants with legitimate legal claims had little to fear from courthouse arrests. According to the court, ICE’s own policies contained no exception protecting individuals pursuing meritorious immigration claims, undermining the government’s litigation arguments that only dangerous individuals were targeted.
Judge Pitts traced more than a decade of federal policy limiting immigration enforcement inside courthouses, noting that both ICE and EOIR had previously recognized that courthouse arrests could discourage people from attending hearings and interfere with the fair administration of justice. Earlier guidance specifically warned that courthouse enforcement actions could have a “chilling effect” on participation in immigration proceedings and create safety risks for court personnel, litigants and children.
The court also documented that after the Trump administration rescinded those protections in early 2025, arrests at immigration courthouses increased dramatically while attendance at immigration hearings declined. Former immigration judges submitted declarations describing a noticeable drop in courtroom attendance following the policy change.
In the same order, Judge Pitts struck down ICE’s June 2025 nationwide Hold Room Waiver, which had suspended the agency’s longstanding 12-hour limit for detention in temporary holding facilities.
The ruling restores the prior prohibition against holding immigrants in temporary processing facilities for extended periods. Those holding rooms were designed only for short-term processing and typically lack beds, showers, adequate food service and sufficient medical facilities. According to the court record, ICE increasingly held detainees overnight and for multiple days after adopting the nationwide waiver.
Judge Pitts found that ICE failed to adequately explain why abandoning the 12-hour limit was necessary and failed to consider reasonable alternatives before implementing the nationwide waiver.
The court wrote that the Administrative Procedure Act requires agencies to explain significant policy reversals rather than simply announcing new enforcement priorities.
The ruling further rejected government arguments seeking geographically limited relief. Judge Pitts held that because the challenged policies were nationwide agency actions adopted under the Administrative Procedure Act, the appropriate remedy was nationwide vacatur rather than relief limited to California.
The order arises from the ongoing federal class action lawsuit Pablo Sequen v. Albarran, challenging both courthouse arrest policies and prolonged detention in unsafe short-term holding facilities.
The plaintiffs are represented by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, the Central American Resource Center of Northern California, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California and Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP.
The rulings take effect immediately and require ICE and EOIR to comply nationwide.
Jordan Wells, program director at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, welcomed the decision.
“The courthouse is meant to be a refuge for the pursuit of justice, not a hunting ground for ICE,” Wells said. “No one, immigrants included, should be forced to choose between their liberty and their day in court.”
Nisha Kashyap, program director at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, said the detention ruling addresses conditions that advocates argued violated constitutional protections.
“The Trump administration held people for days in short-term rooms without beds, showers, proper meals, or medical care to terrorize and coerce immigrants into abandoning their legal claims,” Kashyap said. “This ruling ensures that ICE cannot continue using exhaustion and punishing conditions as tools to bypass and violate the Constitution.”
Neil Sawhney of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California said the ruling reinforces limits on executive authority.
“By striking down the courthouse arrest policy nationwide, the court has reaffirmed a bedrock principle: no administration is above the law,” Sawhney said. “The government cannot strip away protections for people seeking their day in court and refuse to give any explanation for why. This ruling protects every person, in every jurisdiction, who seeks justice in our nation’s immigration courts.”
Laura Sanchez, legal director at CARECEN SF, said the ruling removes what immigrant advocates described as an impossible dilemma.
“For too long, immigrant communities were forced to navigate an impossible choice: risk deportation by skipping court, or risk detention by showing up,” Sanchez said. “That nightmare ends today.”
Duff Beach of Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP said the opinion reinforces longstanding administrative law principles governing federal agencies.
“Agencies cannot simply abandon longstanding practices without justifying the change,” Beach said. “The government agencies failed to do so here, and the court rightfully vacated their policies. This ruling serves as a powerful deterrent to future administrations who will think twice before weaponizing the courthouse and detention conditions, knowing that such overreach cannot survive judicial scrutiny.”
The decision represents one of the most significant judicial setbacks to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda since the administration resumed office, invalidating two cornerstone policies affecting immigration courts and detention operations nationwide while reaffirming that federal agencies remain bound by the procedural safeguards established under the Administrative Procedure Act.
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U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts is a Joe Biden nominee.