Federal Court Delivers Crushing Blow to Trump’s Mass Deportation Agenda, Striking Down Courthouse Arrests Nationwide and Restoring Protections Against Inhumane Detention

San Jose, CA — In a resounding victory for immigrant rights, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California delivered a crushing blow to some of the Trump administration’s most extreme immigration enforcement tactics. The ruling in Pablo Sequen v. Albarran by Judge P. Casey Pitts struck down the Trump administration’s policy of arresting immigrants at courthouses nationwide and restored the pre-existing prohibition on holding immigrants in inhumane short-term holding rooms for more than 12 hours.

The court found that the Trump administration’s courthouse arrest policy is unlawful and vacated the policy nationwide. The ruling vacates policies implemented by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) that enabled thousands of arrests at immigration courthouses across the country since May 2025.

The court’s order follows a motion for summary judgment filed on January 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 most extreme enforcement policies on a nationwide scale. The court’s order grants full vacatur under Section 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act, finding the government’s courthouse arrest policies ‘arbitrary and capricious’ and therefore unlawful. The ruling restores pre-existing policies barring courthouse arrests except in rare, exigent circumstances, and applies to all courthouses nationwide.

In explaining its decision, the court made several devastating findings that rejected the administration’s arguments. The court found 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.” Most tellingly, the court dismantled the administration’s claim that immigrants with valid legal cases have nothing to fear from courthouse arrests. The court pointed out that ICE’s own policies provide no exception for people with meritorious claims, proving that the government’s promise of safety was completely hollow.

In that same order, the court struck down ICE’s June 2025 “nationwide Hold Room Waiver,” a policy that lifted the 12-hour limit on detention in temporary holding cells in hundreds of facilities nationwide. The ruling restores the pre-existing prohibition on holding immigrants in barebones, short-term holding facilities for more than 12 hours. The court’s order grants full vacatur under the Administrative Procedure Act, terminating a policy implemented by the Trump administration last summer, as ICE began detaining people for days on end in temporary cells designed strictly for short-term processing, which lack beds, showers, adequate food, and medical care.

In granting the motion for summary judgment filed on January 29, 2026, the court found that ICE failed to consider alternatives and disregarded the constitutional consequences of the policy change. The ruling reinforces the foundational principle that federal agencies must provide reasoned justifications for abrupt policy changes, particularly when those changes endanger constitutional rights. The court rejected the federal government’s arguments seeking a geographically narrower ruling, upholding the long-established rule that orders in Administrative Procedure Act cases setting aside nationwide policies apply nationwide.

The order arises from the ongoing federal class action lawsuit Pablo Sequen v. Albarran, which challenges both the courthouse arrest policies and the prolonged detention of immigrants in unsafe and unlawful conditions at short-term holding facilities. The plaintiffs are represented by a coalition of civil rights organizations including the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF), the Central American Resource Center of Northern California (CARECEN SF), the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California (ACLU NorCal), and Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP. The rulings are effective immediately and require ICE and EOIR to comply across all jurisdictions in the United States.

View the order here.

Attorney Quotes:

“The courthouse is meant to be a refuge for the pursuit of justice, not a hunting ground for ICE. No one, immigrants included, should be forced to choose between their liberty and their day in court.” – Jordan Wells, Program Director, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF)

“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. This ruling ensures that ICE cannot continue using exhaustion and punishing conditions as tools to bypass and violate the Constitution.” – Nisha Kashyap, Program Director, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF)

“By striking down the courthouse arrest policy nationwide, the court has reaffirmed a bedrock principle: no administration is above the law. 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.” – Neil Sawhney, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California (ACLU NorCal)

“For too long, immigrant communities were forced to navigate an impossible choice: risk deportation by skipping court, or risk detention by showing up. That nightmare ends today.” – Laura Sanchez, Legal Director, CARECEN SF

“Agencies cannot simply abandon longstanding practices without justifying the change. 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.”– Duff Beach, Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP