A lawyer for ICE provided false information to federal prosecutors to justify seizing thousands of people seeking asylum and lawful immigration status in the U.S. at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan and other immigration courts, according to court documents filed Wednesday.
The extraordinary revelation was included in filings by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton’s office in a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union and various civil rights groups and community organizations, which challenges federal immigration authorities’ practice of targeting people for deportation when they leave immigration court hearings, preventing them from pursuing their cases.
Prosecutors said counsel for ICE had informed the office earlier in the day that a May 2025 ICE memo the agency had repeatedly cited to justify mass arrests at immigration courts included no such authorization.
The admission means ICE has not provided any legal justification for the mass arrests at immigration courts in New York or anywhere in the U.S., lawyers for the NYCLU told the Daily News Wednesday. It was not immediately clear how the startling admission would affect immigration court arrests and pending cases amid the Trump administration’s sweeping deportation efforts.
“The implications of this development are far-reaching,” NYCLU attorney Amy Belsher wrote Wednesday to Manhattan Federal Judge Kevin Castel, who is overseeing the suit against ICE.
“In the months since the court relied on the government’s representation to deny plaintiffs preliminary relief, defendants have continued arresting noncitizens at their immigration court hearings, resulting in their detention—often in facilities hundreds of miles away.”
The News reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
Thousands of immigrants have been ambushed by masked ICE agents at 26 Federal Plaza over the past year while walking out of court hearings and held in custody at the complex, according to ICE data obtained by the Deportation Data Project.
Alerting the court to the issue late Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tomoko Onozawa said an attorney for ICE had emailed Clayton’s office earlier in the day to say the ICE memo that prosecutors had heavily relied on to defend the government in the lawsuit “does not and has never authorized” civil immigration enforcement actions in or near immigration courts, after the agency previously claimed otherwise.
Telling Castel the Justice Department would withdraw previous briefs that relied on the memo, Onozawa said there were opinions he issued that would need to be reconsidered and rebriefed.
“We deeply regret that this error has come to light at this late stage, after the parties have expended significant resources and time to litigate this case and this court has carefully considered plaintiffs’ challenge to the 2025 ICE guidance. This error, however, was not caused by a lack of diligence and care by the undersigned attorneys,” Onozawa wrote.
“The undersigned were specifically informed by ICE that the 2025 ICE guidance applied to immigration courthouse arrests.”
Onozawa said that prosecutors had discussed and obtained approval from an unnamed ICE lawyer before filing every brief in the case and before making arguments before the judge. He said they also sent copies of Castel’s orders, court transcripts and other relevant paperwork throughout the litigation.
“Based on our discussions with ICE today, this regrettable error appears to have occurred because of agency attorney error,” the prosecutor wrote.
The DOJ had held up the memo in defending the government against a claim that ICE’s immigration court arrest policy was arbitrary and capricious and violated the Administrative Procedure Act. Castel has denied relief to those who brought the suit based on those arguments. The memo has also been cited in similar litigation in California and Washington, D.C., lawyers for the plaintiffs told The News.
Writing to Castel Wednesday, lawyers for the NYCLU, Make the Road New York, the American Civil Liberties Union and others asked for two weeks to respond to the government’s filing and described the admission as hugely consequential.
“For over a year, ICE has claimed that a 2025 memorandum authorized and justified their devastating policy of conducting mass arrests at immigration courts. In today’s shocking revelation, the government is now admitting that this document — which the court relied on to deny our clients relief — does not and never has authorized these courthouse arrests,” Belsher said in a statement to The News.
“It is yet again another example of ICE’s brazen disregard for the lives of immigrants in this country. It is now clearer than ever that there is no justification for ambushing and arresting people who are showing up to court.”
In response to the admission, Democratic Party officials called for an investigation.
“This is shocking but sadly not surprising given how frequently and repeatedly ICE has blatantly lied to federal courts. The attorney and supervisor must be fired immediately for this egregious violation of the civil rights of every detainee snatched from courthouses in my district, including the 28 detainees my office helped to get released,” Rep. Dan Goldman said in a statement on X.
Former city Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running to unseat Goldman in New York’s 10th Congressional District, in a statement to The News said ICE should immediately halt all immigration court arrests. Lander has been arrested twice at 26 Federal Plaza during protest actions against ICE and is headed to trial in May on a violation alleging he obstructed use of the facility.
“ICE has been lying for a year, not only to the public, but to prosecutors and federal judges, about being authorized to make arrests at immigration courts. This is outrageous, even by Trumpian standards of lawlessness,” Lander said.
“All courthouse arrests must cease immediately, and Congress must launch a full investigation into every unlawful abduction of immigrants who were simply trying to show up to court and follow the law.”
