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Immigration Without Due Process
Arrests After Hearings

Trump's ICE Arrested Asylum-Seekers Leaving Court and Allowed 72 Hours in Rooms Where Beds Are Banned

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Chapter 1 — ICE Removed the Protections at Immigration Court

Chapter 2 — Appearing in Court Became a Route Into Custody

Chapter 3 — Enforcement Authority Did Not Excuse These Choices

1 · ICE Removed the Protections at Immigration Court

1 · ICE Removed the Protections at Immigration Court — select a subtopic

1.1 — Trump's Orders Became Arrest and Detention Policies

1.2 — ICE Removed the Old Rules Without Replacing Them

1 · ICE Removed the Protections at Immigration Court
1.1 · ICE Removed the Protections at Immigration Court
Trump's Orders Became Arrest and Detention Policies
1.2 · ICE Removed the Protections at Immigration Court
ICE Removed the Old Rules Without Replacing Them

ICE's earlier policy limited courthouse arrests to urgent threats and other defined circumstances. Its new policies removed those protections at immigration courts. ICE later told its lawyers that the replacement rules did not cover immigration courts at all, leaving agents without internal limits there.

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2 · Appearing in Court Became a Route Into Custody

2 · Appearing in Court Became a Route Into Custody — select a subtopic

2.1 — Three Asylum-Seekers Show What the Policies Did

2.2 — ICE Extended Confinement but Kept the Ban on Beds

2 · Appearing in Court Became a Route Into Custody
2.1 · Appearing in Court Became a Route Into Custody
Three Asylum-Seekers Show What the Policies Did

ICE arrested Carmen Aracely Pablo Sequen and Ligia Garcia as they left immigration hearings. Agents spared Yulisa Alvarado Ambrocio because her nursing infant was with her, but the government conceded she was likely to be arrested at her next appearance. A former immigration judge described attendance in her courtroom declining after arrests increased. Pitts said people faced a choice between risking arrest by attending court and losing their opportunity to pursue asylum or other relief by staying away.

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2.2 · Appearing in Court Became a Route Into Custody
ICE Extended Confinement but Kept the Ban on Beds

ICE replaced its usual 12-hour hold-room limit with a nationwide allowance for 72 hours, longer in exceptional circumstances. It kept the rule prohibiting beds and other sleeping equipment. Pitts cited detainees held for three days and said denying civil detainees basic sleeping needs overnight was presumed to be punishment. ICE had not considered its duty to avoid that punishment.

Hold-room standard reproduced in Judge Pitts's June 23, 2026 order, page 64

sleeping apparatus are not permitted inside hold rooms

ICE Performance-Based National Detention Standards · June 23, 2026

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3 · Enforcement Authority Did Not Excuse These Choices

3 · Enforcement Authority Did Not Excuse These Choices — select a subtopic

3.1 — The Government's Best Defense Failed to Save the Policies

3.2 — The Appeal and the Claims About Detention Conditions

3.3 — The Charge Is Removing Safeguards to Expand Custody

3 · Enforcement Authority Did Not Excuse These Choices
3.1 · Enforcement Authority Did Not Excuse These Choices
The Government's Best Defense Failed to Save the Policies

The government defended courthouse arrests as legitimate enforcement and longer holding-room detention as a response to scarce detention beds and presidential release restrictions. Pitts accepted parts of its reasoning. He still vacated the policies because the agencies ignored hearing attendance, alternatives and their obligations to people in custody.

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3.2 · Enforcement Authority Did Not Excuse These Choices
The Appeal and the Claims About Detention Conditions

The government appealed Pitts's policy judgment. Plaintiffs separately alleged failures in medical care and other detention safeguards. Plaintiffs alleged more than nine months of noncompliance. Their accompanying memorandum said there was no medical professional onsite and reported that detainees had been ignored by nurses after vomiting blood or while visibly bleeding after arrest. These remained allegations in support of the enforcement motion. The captured appellate docket shows no stay or merits ruling on the appeal through September 21, 2026; the captured district docket shows no ruling on the plaintiffs' motion through October 8, 2026.

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3.3 · Enforcement Authority Did Not Excuse These Choices
The Charge Is Removing Safeguards to Expand Custody

Trump ordered expanded enforcement and detention. His agencies removed courthouse protections; ICE authorized longer confinement while retaining a ban on beds. A judge found the policies unlawful because the agencies failed to consider the people and proceedings their decisions would harm. That was an abuse of public power: making court attendance a route into custody while discarding safeguards for the people taken.

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