ICE agents can't make warrantless arrests in Oregon unless there's a risk of escape, judge rules
Federal immigration agents in Oregon must stop arresting people without warrants unless there's a likelihood of escape, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai issued a preliminary injunction in a proposed class-action lawsuit targeting the Department of Homeland Security's practice of arresting immigrants they happen to come across while conducting ramped-up enforcement operations — which critics have described as "arrest first, justify later."
Similar actions have drawn concern from civil rights groups across the country amid President Trump's mass deportation efforts. The nonprofit law firm Innovation Law Lab brought the lawsuit.
With Wednesday's ruling, Oregon now joins Colorado and Washington, D.C., as jurisdictions where the Trump administration is barred from conducting warrantless arrests without first verifying that the arrestee is a flight risk. There is also a pending lawsuit over warrantless arrests in Minnesota. The government is appealing the rulings in Colorado and D.C.
In a memo last week, Todd Lyons, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, noted that agents should not make an arrest without an administrative arrest warrant issued by a supervisor unless they develop probable cause to believe the person is likely to escape from the scene.
Lyons also expanded the grounds that ICE agents and officers can cite to conclude that getting an administrative arrest warrant for someone they encounter would give that person an opportunity to flee while the warrant is being sought.
But in a court hearing Wednesday, the judge heard evidence that agents in Oregon have arrested people in immigration sweeps without such warrants or determining escape was likely.
That included testimony from one plaintiff, Victor Cruz Gamez, a 56-year-old grandfather who has been in the U.S. since 1999. He told the court he was arrested and held in an immigration detention facility for three weeks despite having a valid work permit and a pending visa application.
The hearing also featured testimony from a person identified as M.A.M. who described a video she took of two armed immigration agents bursting into a bedroom to look for somebody who did not live there. The video of the October raid circulated widely on social media, and a person in the house spoke with CBS News last year.
Kasubhai concluded that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail, and said there is "ample evidence in this case that established a pattern of practice of executing warrantless arrests without sufficient evidence."
Kasubhai also said the actions of agents in Oregon — including drawing guns on people while detaining them for civil immigration violations — have been "violent and brutal," and he was concerned about the administration denying due process to those swept up in immigration raids.
"I'm concerned, as a public servant, and as someone who has to, by virtue of my oath, to uphold the constitution, when I see actions and behavior on behalf of our executive branch that does not observe that same commitment," the judge said. "Due process calls for those who have great power to exercise great restraint ... That is the bedrock of a democratic republic founded on this great constitution. I think we're losing that."