Lawyers for ICE gave false information to justify detaining thousands, filings reveal
Court filings say ICE’s own lawyers cited a memo as authority for courthouse arrests that prosecutors now concede never authorized them, raising serious questions about how thousands of detentions were justified in court.
Mar 26, 2026
Sources
Summary
New court filings in a New York lawsuit say ICE lawyers gave inaccurate information to justify arresting and detaining people after they attended immigration court. The key dispute is that the government previously pointed to a May 2025 ICE memo as authorization, but prosecutors now say ICE counsel acknowledged the memo never authorized those arrests. The story matters because courts and the public rely on government representations to evaluate legality, and errors like this can shape detention decisions for large numbers of people.
Reality Check
The core factual development is narrow but consequential: prosecutors say ICE’s own counsel conceded a memo the government relied on in court never authorized the courthouse-arrest practice.
That does not automatically prove every arrest was unlawful; it does mean the court record may have been shaped by an incorrect representation, and the government is now backtracking on a key claimed basis for the policy.
The most important practical point for readers: even “justification” disputes in civil litigation can translate into real-world detention outcomes when courts deny early relief and the challenged practice continues during the case.
Detail
The filings arise from a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union and other civil-rights groups challenging ICE arrests of people leaving immigration court hearings in New York.
The lawsuit alleges ICE targeted people seeking to gain legal status as they exited court, with arrests preventing them from continuing their immigration cases.
According to prosecutors’ filings, ICE lawyers previously cited a May 2025 agency memo as authorizing the arrests near immigration courts.
Prosecutors now state that ICE lawyers acknowledged the May 2025 memo provided no authorization for those arrests, despite earlier representations to the court.
The filings were submitted by the office of Jay Clayton, identified in the article as a US federal attorney, and were first reported by the New York Daily News (per the Guardian).
NYCLU attorney Amy Belsher told the judge (Kevin Castel) the court had previously relied on the government’s representation when denying preliminary relief, and arrests continued afterward.
An ICE attorney emailed Clayton’s office saying the memo “does not and has never authorized” arrests near immigration courts, contradicting the government’s earlier position.
Assistant US attorney Tomoko Onozawa wrote the court that the government “deeply regret[s]” the error and said it was not caused by a lack of diligence by the attorneys.
The article describes arrests leading to detention “often in facilities hundreds of miles away,” increasing practical barriers to pursuing immigration cases.
The filings described in the article do not, on their face, resolve whether ICE has other legal authority for courthouse-area arrests; they instead challenge the accuracy of a specific justification previously presented to the court.