The Trump administration's Department of Justice acknowledged Wednesday that it erroneously relied on an internal ICE guidance memorandum to defend the practice of arresting immigrants at immigration courthouse hearings — and that the memo itself explicitly stated it "does not apply to Executive Office for Immigration Review (Immigration) courts, regardless of their location." The acknowledgment came after federal prosecutors received the ICE email and had to inform the court that their legal argument rested on a document that had never authorized what they claimed it authorized. NBC News confirmed the error in an article headlined "DOJ says it erroneously relied on ICE memo to justify immigration courthouse arrests."
The courthouse arrest practice — in which ICE agents have detained immigrants appearing for their own scheduled immigration hearings — has drawn sustained legal challenge from civil rights organizations. The New York Civil Liberties Union attorney Amy Belsher called the DOJ's admission "a shocking revelation," noting that the government had been defending courthouse arrests in federal court based on a document that its own language forbade. Dylan Contreras, a 20-year-old Venezuelan NYC public school student, was among those detained at an immigration courthouse appearance in May 2025; he spent ten months in custody before being released this month, according to NBC News. He had no criminal history.
The DOJ's error has implications for pending litigation. U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel, who is presiding over an NYCLU challenge to courthouse arrests, had previously declined to block the practice. The government's acknowledgment that its primary legal defense rested on a misread memo could affect how the court evaluates the plaintiffs' ongoing request for an injunction. Courthouse arrests undermine the immigration court system itself — immigration judges, court administrators, and defense attorneys have argued that if immigrants fear arrest when appearing for hearings, they will default on their appearances, creating a backlog that slows the adjudication of cases the administration prioritizes.
Breitbart and right-leaning immigration coverage have generally framed courthouse enforcement as a legitimate tool to apprehend individuals with removal orders who have evaded prior ICE contact, arguing that immigration courts are not sacred spaces that should be exempt from law enforcement. The DOJ error complicates that framing: the government cannot claim that courthouse arrests were legally authorized if the authorizing document specifically excluded immigration courts from its scope. The administration has not announced whether it will pause courthouse arrests while it identifies proper legal authority for the practice.
Left-Leaning Emphasis
- NBC News and the NYCLU framed the DOJ's admission as a 'shocking revelation' that undermines the rule of law — arguing that the government conducted a systematic enforcement practice and defended it in federal court using a document that specifically prohibited what the government was doing, calling it a fundamental breakdown in legal accountability.
- Left-leaning coverage emphasized Dylan Contreras's case as emblematic: a young student with no criminal history, appearing at his own immigration hearing as legally required, spent ten months detained because of an enforcement operation the government now admits had no valid legal basis.
Right-Leaning Emphasis
- Breitbart and conservative immigration commentary have framed courthouse enforcement as a legitimate practice that the Biden administration's prohibition on had created a loophole — allowing individuals with outstanding removal orders to evade apprehension by appearing only in protected courthouse settings — and argued that the administration needs to find proper legal authority rather than abandon courthouse enforcement entirely.
- Right-leaning coverage treated the memo error as an administrative mistake that the DOJ acknowledged and corrected, rather than evidence of bad faith — arguing the underlying policy goal of apprehending removable individuals remains valid and that the administration will identify proper authorization for the practice.