Arresting migrants or asylum seekers at immigration court was a tactic attorneys said they had never seen before. The controversial practice became commonplace last year, but now the legal authority the Department of Justice used to defend it is up in the air. In a court filing responding to an o ngoing lawsuit seeking to block the practice, federal prosecutors said this week that they wrongly relied on an ICE memo to justify the practice. The ICE memo said, “ICE officers or agents may conduct civil immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses when they have credible information” that a targeted person would be “present at a specific location.” Now, DOJ officials say the memo “does not and has never applied to civil immigration enforcement actions in or near” immigration courts. According to the government’s court filing, the discrepancy was discovered via an email to ICE personnel that said: “reminder that the May 27, 2025, guidance does not apply to Executive Office for Immigration Review (Immigration) courts, regardless of their location.” Maria Chavez, an immigration attorney in San Diego, said she was not surprised by the development. She had half a dozen clients taken into custody at their hearings. “They were trying to do things the right way,” Chavez said. “It was traumatizing. There were days where I would just go into court, you know, having cried because I knew what was going to happen. And I knew that there was nothing I could do to stop it.” Prosecutors said they were withdrawing the parts of its legal brief that relied on the ICE memo, that withdrawal “does not affect its arguments that ICE’s immigration courthouse arrests do not violate any so-called common-law privilege against courthouse arrests.” The legal fallout, if there is any, from DOJ’s admission is yet to be seen. However, in a statement to NBC 7, a DHS spokesperson said, “There is no change in policy. We will continue to arrest illegal aliens at immigration courts following their proceedings. It is common sense to take them into custody following the completion of their removal proceedings. Nothing prohibits arresting a lawbreaker where you find them.” ...read more read less