New York's Protect Our Courts Act will be overturned on appeal
U.S. Department of Justice
Politics & Government Active Updated Jul 9, 2026
ICE's Courthouse Exception
ICE spent a year arresting immigrants at Manhattan's immigration courts at 26 Federal Plaza and 290 Broadway before U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel largely shut the practice down on May 18, 2026, after the government admitted the memo it had cited never authorized the arrests. Arrests resumed within weeks anyway, and ICE now argues New York's sanctuary-city protests make its courthouses the only safe place to make arrests. Whether Castel accepts that reading of his own order decides if showing up to immigration court in New York still means risking detention.
The story so far
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Jul 9, 2026 Latest
ICE filed a court declaration Monday claiming New York's sanctuary-city protests and bystander intervention make street arrests unsafe, classifying its immigration courthouses at 26 Federal Plaza and 290 Broadway as the safest arrest location under the narrow exception to Judge Castel's May 18 order against courthouse arrests. Among the five people arrested in late June was a man whose only U.S. criminal record stems from his 2024 border crossing; he had since appeared in immigration court at least three times and complied with supervision. Plaintiffs' lawyers asked Castel in a June 29 letter to step in, writing the detentions raised serious concerns about ICE's compliance.
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Jun 23, 2026
A federal court in California applied courthouse-arrest restrictions nationwide on June 23. Within days, ICE arrested at least five more people at Manhattan's immigration courts anyway, two at 26 Federal Plaza and three at 290 Broadway, including two on June 25 caught on video and one on June 29.
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Mar 24, 2026
The Justice Department admitted to Judge Castel that it had been incorrectly citing the May 2025 ICE memo all along: the memo never authorized arrests at immigration courts. DOJ called it a regrettable error by an agency attorney. Castel had leaned on that memo in September when he let the arrests continue.
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Nov 17, 2025
Chief Judge Mae D'Agostino in Albany dismissed the Justice Department's challenge to the Protect Our Courts Act, holding that New York acted within its sovereign right to manage its courts and that the Tenth Amendment protects the state's refusal to assist federal immigration enforcement. The U.S. filed its appeal on January 15, 2026.
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Aug 1, 2025
The NYCLU, the ACLU, and Make the Road New York sued over the arrest policy in Manhattan federal court on behalf of African Communities Together and The Door, drawing Judge P. Kevin Castel. A data analysis for The City Reporter days later found New York had become the national capital of immigration court arrests: 134 people taken in Lower Manhattan courthouse buildings between May 26 and June 8, and 181 court-related arrests in 2025 against 11 the entire prior year.
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May 29, 2025
Masked ICE agents began arresting people at Manhattan's immigration courts on May 20, 2025, pairing the arrests with a new tactic: government lawyers moved to dismiss cases so the people appearing could be rearrested into fast-track deportation. On back-to-back days in late May, agents took at least 14 people at 26 Federal Plaza and 290 Broadway.
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Jan 20, 2025
The second Trump administration rescinded the protected-areas policy that had limited immigration arrests at courthouses, schools, hospitals, and churches, directing officers to use discretion and common sense instead of bright-line rules.
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Apr 27, 2021
The Biden administration issued joint ICE and CBP guidance prohibiting civil immigration arrests in or near courthouses, including immigration courts, outside narrow exceptions: national security matters, imminent risk of death or violence, hot pursuit of a public safety threat, or imminent destruction of evidence. That memo became the benchmark a New York judge would later order ICE back to.
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Dec 15, 2020
Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Protect Our Courts Act, writing the protection into state law: no civil arrest of anyone going to, attending, or leaving a court proceeding without a judicial warrant or order. The bill had passed both chambers in July with bipartisan support.
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Jun 10, 2020
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff ruled ICE's policy of civil arrests at New York state courthouses illegal, in the suit Attorney General Letitia James and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez filed in September 2019, and barred arrests of anyone required to travel to court as a party or witness.
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Apr 17, 2019
After Immigrant Defense Project data showed ICE courthouse arrests across New York State had surged 1,700% since 2016, the state Office of Court Administration issued a directive barring ICE from arresting anyone inside a state courthouse without a judicial warrant or order. New York was the first state to adopt such a rule.
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