(CN) - A federal judge on Friday ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to stop arresting Oregonians without a warrant and without making a probable cause determination of escape risk.
U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai placed a preliminary injunction on the agency, finding a high likelihood a group of immigrants could prove the merits of their claim that ICE is abusing its arrest and deportation powers.
"Defendants' practice of conducting warrantless arrests without the required individualized probable cause determination of escape risk is not tentative or interlocutory and rather, represents the consummation of defendants' decision-making process to engage in this unlawful conduct," Kasubhai, a Joe Biden appointee to the District of Oregon, wrote in a 52-page ruling.
ICE officials maintain the arrests are not part of any policy or pattern, and the arrested plaintiffs were unfortunate individual cases. Kasubhai seemed to doubt that, noting a full record of similar cases in the district.
The judge found the challenged ICE policy constitutes a final agency action and the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims. Kasubhai also said an injunction was necessary, despite ICE's insistence that any future harm is only speculative.
"Defendants' voluntary cessation of challenged conduct does not moot this case," the judge wrote. "Defendants have a longstanding history of noncompliance with these same laws. The court has no confidence that they will cease the unlawful practices, even, if not especially, when they insist with a straight face they are complying with the law."
Even if immigration officers are sure someone is violating immigration laws, they are still not authorized - based on the Fourth Amendment and the Immigration and Nationality Act - to arrest someone without a warrant or an assessment of their likelihood of escape, Kasubhai said.
"The evidence demonstrates that ICE fails to meaningfully question individuals or document facts known to the officers at the time of arrest that could establish probable cause of detainees' likelihood of escape before officers can obtain a warrant. Instead, officers copy and paste language and broadly cite general immigration violations or information obtained after the time of arrest," he wrote.
The two lead plaintiffs in the case say they were arrested in Oregon and taken to a Washington state processing facility over 100 miles away. For one of them, ICE officers "cited mundane, non-criminal characteristics and activities and cited almost no facts that should have been considered when making a likelihood of escape determination," Kasubhai said.
The judge also certified a class of Oregon arrestees since Sept. 28, 2025, that have been or will be arrested for immigration violations without a warrant and without a pre-arrest, individualized assessment of probable cause that the person poses an escape risk.
Kasubhai also ordered the defendants - including acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, along with Seattle's ICE field office director - to provide documentation of "specific, particularized facts" every 30 days while the case is ongoing on any warrantless arrests conducted.
Neither party immediately responded to a request for comment made after business hours.
Source: Courthouse News Service
