Additional Coverage:
- ICE ordered to retrain agents in Colorado immediately amid fury over warrantless arrests (themirror.com)
A federal judge in Colorado has determined that immigration officers have breached a court order restricting when they can conduct warrantless arrests.
U.S. District Senior Judge R.
Brooke Jackson ruled on Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents violated his November directive, which prohibits arrests without a warrant unless officers have probable cause to believe the individual is unlawfully present in the country and poses a flight risk before a warrant can be obtained. Despite this, Jackson found that ICE agents continued to carry out warrantless arrests without making individualized assessments of flight risk.
The judge has mandated that immigration agents authorized to perform warrantless arrests undergo training on the court’s orders. Additionally, the government must provide records of all such arrests. This ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado, challenging so-called collateral arrests-instances where individuals are inadvertently caught in immigration enforcement actions.
The ACLU alleges that ICE is indiscriminately arresting Latino individuals to meet enforcement targets amid the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation policies, disregarding legal limits on detention.
In his latest decision, Judge Jackson criticized ICE for failing to properly train its officers on complying with his previous order and for consistently neglecting documentation requirements related to warrantless arrests. He has given ICE 45 days to implement the required training.
ICE, which appealed the initial order in November, did not immediately comment on the recent ruling.
“This is a profoundly important decision for the rule of law and the people of Colorado,” said Tim Macdonald, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado. “The court made clear that ICE is not above the law and cannot continue to violate the law.”
Similar restrictions on warrantless arrests have been ordered by federal judges in Oregon, California, and Washington, D.C., emphasizing that arrests without warrants should only happen when there is a significant risk of escape.
Typically, immigration officers obtain administrative warrants-authorizations issued by immigration authorities-before searching for individuals targeted for deportation. The contentious issue involves arrests of other undocumented individuals encountered during these operations.
Notably, the Biden administration had previously banned such collateral arrests, reflecting a shift in immigration enforcement policy.