Federal judge blocks sweeping immigration arrests in D.C. without warrants

U.S. Marshals and Homeland Security Investigations agents take a man into custody at the intersection of 14th and N streets NW in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 3, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Tuesday barred federal agents from carrying out warrantless arrests in the District of Columbia unless they can demonstrate probable cause, after immigration advocates sued.

Under the preliminary injunction granted by U.S. District Senior Judge Beryl A. Howell, immigration agents can only arrest a person in the district without a warrant if they can establish that the individual is in the United States unlawfully and poses a flight risk before a warrant can be obtained from an authority. 

Advocates who brought the suit had said they believed Latinos were being targeted for arrests in the district, even those with legal status.

“Consequently, viewing all immigrants potentially subject to removal as criminals is, as a legal matter, plain wrong,” wrote Howell, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama.

Howell noted Trump administration officials’ public comments on the need to meet immigration arrest quotas, rather than focusing on targeted enforcement and probable cause.

“Here, ‘the record’ as a whole ‘leaves no doubt’ that defendants in practice have consummated a decisionmaking process that resulted in the implementation of a new policy of conducting warrantless civil immigration arrests based on a lower standard than probable cause,” according to Howell’s order.

National Guard presence

The suit stems from President Donald Trump’s August emergency declaration in the district that flooded the 68-square-mile capital with federal law enforcement and National Guard troops. 

As a result, there has been an uptick in aggressive immigration enforcement by federal officers, both in plain clothes and masked, in neighborhoods with high immigrant populations.

The four individual plaintiffs in the case are all immigrants with some form of legal status, such as a pending asylum case or temporary protections. But all were arrested and detained by federal officers, sometimes for days. 

In statements to the court, they described feeling like they were being kidnapped and argued they were targeted because of their ethnicity. They said they feared they will continue to be targeted because they are Latino.

The legal organizations representing the plaintiffs pushed for two class certifications, which means others who were affected would be represented in the suit. 

Howell said in her order that she would make a determination on those two class certifications at a later time. 

ACLU, others praise preliminary injunction

Legal groups representing the plaintiffs celebrated the preliminary injunction.

“Despite the Trump administration’s attempts at fear and intimidation, everyone in D.C. has rights, regardless of who they are and their immigration status; and all federal agents are required by law to respect these rights,” according to a joint statement from the legal groups who brought the suit against the federal government. 

Those legal groups included the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia; the American Civil Liberties Union; Amica Center for Immigrant Rights; CASA; National Immigration Project; the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs; and the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP.