Federal Judge Blocks ICE Courthouse Arrests Nationwide, Restores 12-Hour Detention Cap — Certifies Nationwide Class

On June 24, 2026, U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California issued a 71-page ruling vacating the Trump administration's ICE and Executive Office for Immigration Review courthouse-arrest policies on a nationwide basis and certified a nationwide class of affected immigrants. The ruling restores the pre-2025 framework limiting courthouse arrests to national-security threats, imminent public-safety danger, or hot pursuit of a fleeing individual, and struck down the administration's rule that had extended permissible short-term detention from 12 hours to 72 hours. Pitts found the policies violated the Administrative Procedure Act because ICE and EOIR 'failed to provide reasoned explanations for their actions' in abandoning the earlier restrictions. The case was brought by Carmen Aracely Pablo Sequen, a Guatemalan asylum-seeker arrested leaving a routine hearing at San Francisco immigration court, later joined by additional plaintiffs. The Trump administration immediately appealed the preliminary injunction, leaving the legal landscape for courthouse arrests unsettled pending appellate review.