19 CIv. 08876

Subscribe to 19 CIv. 08876 via RSS

On Wednesday, Judge Rakoff granted summary judgment in favor of New York State and the Kings County District Attorney in their challenge to a decision by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (“ICE”) to greatly increase civil immigration arrests in and around courthouses. Plaintiffs had alleged that the directive exceeded ICE’s statutory authority and had been adopted in an arbitrary and capricious manner. See our previous coverage here.

Judge Rakoff agreed, finding that the Immigration and Nationality Act incorporated the “centuries-old common law privilege against courthouse civil arrest.”  He also found that ICE had “offered no rationale other than its misguided reliance” on an Executive Order, which had directed the Department of Homeland Security to prioritize immigration enforcement against broader categories of aliens but was not addressed to courthouse arrests. Judge Rakoff’s ruling also emphasized the that ICE’s policy was compounding the challenges already presented by COVID-19:
Continue Reading Judge Rakoff: ICE Policy of Making Immigration Arrests at Courthouses is Illegal

In an opinion yesterday, Judge Rakoff refused to dismiss a case brought by New York State and the Kings County District Attorney challenging a policy by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, or ICE, of arresting suspected unauthorized immigrants when they show up for court proceedings.  The opinion introduces the case as follows:

Courts cannot be expected to function properly if third parties (not least the executive branch of the government) feel free to disrupt the proceedings and intimidate the parties and witnesses by staging arrests for unrelated civil violations in the courthouse, on court property, or while the witnesses or parties are in transit to or from their court proceedings. Accordingly, more than 500 years ago, the English courts developed a common law privilege against civil arrests on courthouse premises and against arrests of parties and other persons necessarily traveling to or from court.

This ancient privilege, incorporated into American law in the early years of our republic by virtually all state and federal courts, has remained largely intact over the centuries. But now, according to the State of New York, [ICE], in implementation of an Executive Order issued by the Trump Administration in January 2017 and a Directive to ICE agents promulgated in January 2018, has increased its civil arrests in or around New York state courthouses by a remarkable 1700 percent and more. By this lawsuit, plaintiff The State of New York, joined by co-plaintiff Eric Gonzalez (the District Attorney of Kings County), demand that these intrusions be halted.

Judge Rakoff rejected the government’s argument (among others) that the immigration laws trump any common law privilege, because there was no “clear” statutory language to that effect:
Continue Reading Judge Rakoff: New York May Challenge ICE Policy of Making Immigration Arrests at Courthouses