U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts struck down two Trump administration ICE enforcement policies Tuesday, ruling in a 71-page opinion that the agency and the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review failed to meet the reasoned-explanation standard required under the Administrative Procedure Act. The decision vacates ICE's 2025 policy removing restrictions on civil immigration arrests at courthouses and a separate agency waiver extending permissible detention in short-term holding facilities from 12 hours to 72 hours. Pitts, nominated by former President Joe Biden, found both policies "devoid of rational explanation."
Vacatur, Not Injunction — a Procedural Distinction With Teeth
The ruling is nationwide in effect but structured differently from the broad nationwide injunctions the Supreme Court invalidated in its 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA. Rather than ordering the government not to enforce the policies, Pitts vacated them — removing the policies themselves under the APA. A vacatur eliminates the rule; an injunction merely blocks its application. That distinction preserves the ruling's nationwide reach while sidestepping the constitutional constraint the Supreme Court set last year.
The lawsuit was brought by a group of asylum seekers challenging ICE's 2025 courthouse-arrest guidance and the 72-hour detention waiver, both of which departed from longstanding agency practice without, in Pitts' view, adequate administrative justification.
Courthouse Arrests: A Record the Court Found Contradictory
Pitts was particularly pointed in his criticism of the courthouse-arrest policy. The administration spent months in litigation defending the policy as applicable to immigration courts, then disclosed that ICE internally viewed the policy as not covering those venues at all. The judge found the agency offered no explanation for why it abandoned prior guidance — guidance that limited courthouse arrests specifically because of evidence they could discourage immigrants from appearing for hearings and interfere with the administration of justice. He concluded ICE's 2025 policies failed to address that chilling effect, calling it "an important aspect of the problem" the agency never engaged with. Pitts also vacated the EOIR's related policy rescinding enforcement restrictions at immigration courthouses, finding that agency relied on flawed assumptions and similarly ignored evidence on courtroom attendance.
72-Hour Detention Waiver: No Alternatives Considered
The second major holding targets ICE's nationwide waiver of its 12-hour limit for short-term holding facilities. ICE adopted the waiver after reporting that increased enforcement activity strained detention capacity and complicated transfers to longer-term facilities. Pitts found the agency failed to consider alternatives, did not reconcile the waiver with its own detention standards, and never adequately addressed whether holding detainees beyond 12 hours could create unconstitutional conditions of confinement.
Pattern of Rulings; DHS Pushes Back
Tuesday's decision extends a line of Pitts interventions. Earlier this year he blocked an ICE initiative to rearrest migrants the agency had previously released, and separately ordered sweeping changes at a San Francisco ICE detention facility after finding likely constitutional violations from overcrowding. A parallel ruling last month from U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel in New York barred ICE civil immigration arrests at or near three Manhattan immigration courthouses while a separate challenge proceeds.
Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival called the ruling "naked judicial activism in service of an anti-American, open borders agenda." Pitts, for his part, emphasized that the administration remains free to adopt stricter immigration enforcement — provided it follows the procedural requirements federal law imposes on agency rulemaking.