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Judge Issues Injunction on DC Arrests 12/03 06:21
(AP) -- A federal judge late Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from
making widespread immigration arrests in the nation's capital without warrants
or probable cause that the person is an imminent flight risk.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington granted a preliminary
injunction sought by civil liberties and immigrants rights groups in a lawsuit
against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
An email to the department after hours Tuesday was not immediately returned.
Officers making civil immigration arrests generally have to have an
administrative warrant. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, they may
make arrests without a warrant only if they have probable cause to believe the
person is in the U.S. illegally and is likely to escape before a warrant can be
obtained, according to Howell's ruling.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs' attorneys argued
federal officers were frequently patrolling and setting up checkpoints in
Washington, D.C., neighborhoods with large numbers of Latino immigrants and
then stopping and arresting people indiscriminately.
They provided sworn declarations from people they say were arrested without
warrants or a required assessment of flight risk and cited public statements by
administration officials that they said showed the administration was not using
the probable cause standard.
Attorneys for the administration denied it had a policy allowing such
arrests.
Howell, who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, a
Democrat, said the plaintiffs had "established a substantial likelihood of an
unlawful policy and practice by defendants of conducting warrantless civil
immigration arrests without probable cause."
"Defendants' systemic failure to apply the probable cause standard,
including the failure to consider escape risk, directly violates" immigration
law and the Department of Homeland Security's implementing regulations, she
said.
In addition to blocking the policy, she ordered any agent who conducts a
warrantless civil immigration arrest in Washington to document "the specific,
particularized facts that supported the agent's pre-arrest probable cause to
believe that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained."
Howell also required the government to submit that documentation to
plaintiffs' attorneys.
The ruling is similar to two others in federal lawsuits that also involved
the ACLU, one in Colorado and another in California.
Another judge had issued a restraining order barring federal agents from
stopping people based solely on their race, language, job or location in the
Los Angeles area after finding that they were conducting indiscriminate stops,
but the Supreme Court lifted that order in September.
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