U.S. District Senior Judge R. Brooke Jackson said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have violated his November order that barred them from arresting anyone without a warrant unless they had probable cause to believe a person is in the country illegally and likely to escape before officers can get a warrant. Since then, Jackson said ICE agents have violated the order by continuing to make warrantless arrests “without individualized, pre-arrest probable cause determinations of flight risk.”
The judge also ordered immigration agents who are authorized to make warrantless arrests to undergo training on the court’s orders and for the government to turn over records of such warrantless arrests. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado over so-called collateral arrests of people accidentally caught up in immigration enforcement actions.
The ACLU accuses U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of indiscriminately arresting Latinos to meet enforcement goals amid President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts and ignoring legal restrictions on who should be detained.
In his latest ruling, Jackson concluded ICE had failed to adequately train its deportation officers on the requirements of his November court order and is now requiring such instruction within 45 days.
He also found ICE had “uniformly failed” to follow documentation requirements for warrantless arrests under his court order.
Recommended for you
ICE, which has appealed Jackson’s November decision, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday’s ruling.
“This is a profoundly important decision for the rule of law and the people of Colorado,” Tim Macdonald, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, said in a statement. “The court made clear that ICE is not above the law and cannot continue to violate the law.”
In the last year, federal judges in Oregon, California and Washington, D.C., also have ordered immigration officers in their districts not to conduct arrests without a warrant unless there is a likelihood of escape.
Immigration officers generally get administrative warrants, which are documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize an arrest, before looking for someone targeted for arrest and deportation. At issue in the court cases is the arrest of other people without legal status that officers find, including while looking for the targeted people.
Such collateral arrests were banned during former President Joe Biden’s administration. ____ Former Associated Press reporter Colleen Slevin contributed to this report.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO
personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who
make comments. Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. Don't threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Anyone violating these rules will be issued a
warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be
revoked.
Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.