A judge on Monday largely barred federal agents from making arrests in immigration courts in New York City, putting an abrupt halt to a policy that emerged last year as the centerpiece of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Manhattan.
The federal judge, P. Kevin Castel, issued the ruling two months after the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office sent a highly unusual letter to the court saying that it had mistakenly relied on a Department of Homeland Security policy memo when detaining noncitizens in immigration court.
Opponents of the Trump administration, including Brad Lander, the former comptroller of New York City who is running for Congress as a Democrat, said the letter amounted to an admission of a “bombshell lie” that had been used as a rationale for the detention of thousands of immigrants.
The policy had led to remarkable scenes within the immigration courts at 26 Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan, as immigrants attending court for routine hearings were suddenly detained and, sometimes, dragged away from their families. Protesters began to attend in droves and some — including Mr. Lander — were arrested alongside the immigrants.
Lawyers for two nonprofit immigrant advocacy groups, the Door and African Communities Together, had argued against the constitutionality of the courthouse arrests. They called on the judge to stop the policy, which left immigrants scared to attend hearings for fear of being detained.
Federal officials had defended the arrests, saying they allowed agents a safer environment in which to detain their targets, allowing them to avoid the risks of deploying teams into local communities.
Judge Castel, of Manhattan federal court, had previously declined to halt the policy. But in light of the government’s March admission, he revised that opinion, saying Monday that he had done so “both to correct a clear error and prevent a manifest injustice.”
His earlier decision, he wrote, “relied upon the clearly erroneous premise that the 2025 policies applied to immigration courthouses.”
A lawyer for the immigrant advocacy groups, Amy Belsher, director of immigrants’ rights litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the ruling was “hugely important,” assuming that the Trump administration complied.
“People can now go to immigration court with the understanding that they won’t be arrested there,” she said.
Ms. Belsher noted that under the ruling, ICE officers must adhere to earlier guidelines that permit immigration court arrests only in very limited circumstances.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said: “It is common sense to take illegal aliens into custody following the completion of their removal proceedings. Nothing prohibits arresting a lawbreaker where you find them. We are confident we will ultimately be vindicated in this case.”
Judge Castel said that his ruling applied to immigration courts at 26 Federal Plaza and two other Manhattan locations — 201 Varick Street and 290 Broadway. The ruling does not apply nationwide.
It is still unclear why ICE abruptly reversed its guidance. In its March letter, the government had said only that the mistake had been a result of “agency attorney error.”
In August 2025, the Door and African Communities Together challenged what they called the Trump administration’s “sweeping, unprecedented campaign of targeting noncitizens” at immigration courts.
The suit noted that for decades, ICE agents and other federal officers largely refrained from conducting civil immigration arrests at immigration courthouses, in part because such arrests could deter noncitizens from attending mandatory court proceedings. That policy let to an April 2021 ICE memo that prohibited such enforcement actions “in or near a courthouse.”
In May of last year, as the Trump administration pressured federal law enforcement agencies to increase daily arrests of noncitizens, the suit said, ICE issued a new policy allowing agents to make immigration arrests at courthouses. The memo explicitly said that ICE officers could detain noncitizens — at immigration courthouses.
“ICE began arresting noncitizens in record numbers,” the lawsuit said, “causing chaos both for families who were abruptly separated and for the noncitizens themselves, who were in many cases held incommunicado, unable to contact their loved ones for several days.”
The suit asked Judge Castel to set aside the new ICE courthouse arrests policy as arbitrary, capricious and “contrary to law.”
The government opposed such action, citing the May 2025 memo and saying a balance needed to be struck between allowing ICE to conduct the arrests it was mandated to make and the chilling effect of those arrests.
In September 2025, heeding the government’s arguments, the judge denied the request.
But in March, the government revealed its stunning reversal of position to the court. “We write respectfully and regrettably to correct a material mistaken statement of fact that the government made to the court and plaintiffs,” the U.S. attorney’s office told the judge.
Judge Castel said his ruling will remain in effect pending a full review of the merits of the ICE policies challenged in the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs had also indicated they intended to ask the judge to punish the government for its swift and unexplained reversal.
“The question of sanctions is an important one — it’s a very important one,” Judge Castel said at an April hearing after the government disclosed its mistake. But he said he would defer the issue until later in the litigation.
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in the New York region for The Times. He is focused on political influence and its effect on the rule of law in the area’s federal and state courts.
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