PORTLAND, Ore. — A federal judge has ordered U.S. immigration agents in Oregon to stop making warrantless arrests unless they have probable cause that a person is likely to escape, issuing a preliminary injunction Wednesday in a proposed class-action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security.
U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai granted the injunction challenging the department’s practice of detaining immigrants encountered during intensified enforcement operations — tactics critics describe as “arrest first, justify later.” The department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kasubhai’s ruling follows similar decisions in Colorado and Washington, D.C., which the government has appealed. Last week, Todd Lyons, acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, issued a memo saying agents should not arrest someone without an administrative arrest warrant from a supervisor unless they develop probable cause that the person is in the U.S. illegally and likely to flee before a warrant can be obtained. Yet evidence at the hearing showed agents in Oregon sometimes arrested people in sweeps without such warrants or any assessment that escape was likely.
At a daylong hearing, one plaintiff, Victor Cruz Gamez, testified he has lived in the U.S. since 1999 but was detained despite holding a valid work permit and having a pending visa application. Cruz Gamez said immigration agents pulled him over while he was driving home from work last October; he presented his driver’s license and work permit but was taken to an ICE office in Portland and then to an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington, where he was held for three weeks and nearly deported before a lawyer secured his release. He described the emotional toll on his family, saying his wife avoided answering the door for weeks and a grandchild was afraid to go to school.
Kasubhai criticized agents’ conduct in Oregon, noting officers have drawn guns during detentions for civil immigration violations and describing some actions as “violent and brutal.” He warned the administration’s practices risk denying due process to people swept up in raids. “Due process calls for those who have great power to exercise great restraint,” he said. “That is the bedrock of a democratic republic founded on this great constitution. I think we’re losing that.”
The lawsuit was filed by Innovation Law Lab. Executive Director Stephen Manning said he expects the case to spur change in Oregon and emphasized that it seeks to compel the government to follow the law. The preliminary injunction will remain in effect while the litigation continues.
