A judge banned ICE from arresting immigrants at three Manhattan courthouses, exposing how federal agents turned legal compliance into a deportation trap
A federal judge in New York ordered immigration agents to stop making arrests at three Manhattan immigration courthouses, ruling that the practice undermines the judicial system itself [4]. The ban applies only to buildings at 26 Federal Plaza, 201 Varick Street, and 290 Broadway, leaving the same enforcement strategy intact at hundreds of immigration courts nationwide [4].
The ruling reveals a mechanism at the center of the Trump administration's $170 billion immigration enforcement expansion: the government legally compels immigrants to appear in court to contest deportation, then stations ICE agents in courthouse lobbies to arrest them when they comply [1][4]. Show up and face arrest. Skip court and guarantee deportation. The system creates the trap, then prosecutes people for falling into it.
US District Judge P. Kevin Castel issued the order Monday in response to a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Make the Road NY [4]. But the judge had ruled the opposite way just months earlier, clearing the path for courthouse arrests in September before reversing course [4]. What changed was a rare admission: federal prosecutors apologized to Judge Castel in March for making a "material mistaken statement of fact" to the court [4]. The Trump administration blamed the error on "agency attorney error" and withdrew portions of four briefs and statements made during oral argument [4].
Whether the government's misrepresentation was incompetence or strategy, the result was the same, a judge initially authorized enforcement based on information the government later admitted was wrong.
How the courthouse arrest system works
Every time immigration agents make an arrest alleging unauthorized presence, they fill out an I-213 form, a Record of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien [2]. The Department of Homeland Security then uses those same forms in immigration court to prove a person is in the country illegally [2]. The document that records the arrest becomes evidence justifying deportation, creating a circular system where the act of enforcement generates its own legal foundation.
The Guardian obtained spreadsheets with data extracted from I-213 forms covering fiscal year 2023 through August 2025 after filing records requests and pursuing a lawsuit through the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press when the government did not respond [2]. The data matched 86% of records from the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley, validating the scale of courthouse-based enforcement through the end of the first Trump term [2].
The $170 billion reconciliation law signed by President Trump in July 2025 included $45 billion to the Department of Homeland Security specifically for expansion of immigration detention centers [1]. Courthouse arrests feed that detention infrastructure, each I-213 form represents not just an arrest but a person entering a system designed to process them toward removal.
When enforcement crossed the line
Federal agents shot and killed two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in separate cases in January in Minneapolis [4]. Polling revealed most Americans believed immigration agents had gone too far with their tactics following the killings [4]. The courthouse ban emerged from that political moment, a rare instance where public pressure, legal advocacy, and judicial skepticism converged.
Judge Castel's order allows the boundaries set out in federal policy from April 2021 regarding enforcement actions inside courthouses to remain in effect [4]. That policy, established under the Biden administration, had created limited protections that the Trump administration effectively abandoned. The ruling restores restrictions that had already existed, rather than creating new ones.
But the protections contain exceptions wide enough to preserve enforcement discretion. Federal agents can still detain individuals at locations "away from" immigration courts, and can make arrests at immigration courthouses when there is "a serious threat to public safety" [4]. Who defines "away from"? Who determines when a threat qualifies as serious? The order leaves those questions to the same agency that made "material mistaken statements" to justify courthouse arrests in the first place.
Three buildings, hundreds of courts
The ban applies only to three Manhattan locations and does not apply nationwide [4]. Immigration courts operate in dozens of cities across the country. In each one, immigrants facing deportation proceedings must still choose between appearing as legally required or avoiding the building entirely. The judge's order protects people walking into three specific addresses in one city while the same enforcement strategy continues everywhere else.
The limited scope makes the ruling simultaneously significant and symbolic. It establishes that courthouse arrests undermine judicial process enough to warrant prohibition. It confirms that federal prosecutors misled a judge to defend the practice. And it protects a fraction of one percent of the locations where the practice continues.
For immigrants with cases at 26 Federal Plaza, 201 Varick Street, or 290 Broadway, the order changes the calculation. For everyone else, the trap remains exactly as designed. The government creates the legal obligation, stations agents at the compliance point, and uses the resulting arrests to justify an enforcement system that received $170 billion to expand its capacity. The courthouse ban carved out three exceptions. The question is what happens at all the courthouses where the rule still applies.
