Judge rules ICE can ONLY arrest illegal immigrants 'likely to flee' in Colorado

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents may only make warrantless arrests of illegal immigrants in Colorado if they are "likely to flee."

U.S. District Senior Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote in her order granting a preliminary injunction, "Plaintiffs are four individuals who were subjected to this unlawful practice. Although they lacked legal status, each had deep and longstanding ties to their communities—including parents, spouses, children, stable employment histories, and active participation in their local churches. No reasonable officer could have reasonably concluded that these plaintiffs were likely to flee before a warrant could be obtained. Yet ICE nonetheless arrested each one immediately and detained them for significant periods, causing severe hardship and loss."

Jackson wrote that the court had received "additional evidence tending to show that ICE has a practice of conducting warrantless arrests in Colorado without considering flight risk on an individual basis." The judge said that the court "considers relevant" statements made by senior immigration officials "declaring in unequivocal and unqualified terms that ICE will arrest anybody it encounters who is unlawfully present."

"These statements are of a piece with the Trump Administration’s publicly confirmed minimum daily quota of 3,000 immigration arrests, and the command from White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, to 'just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,' whoever and wherever they are. Meeting or coming anywhere close to this quota necessarily requires the arrest of substantial numbers of undocumented immigrants without pending criminal charges or records, in other words, non-targets." Those who enter the United States illegally are already committing a crime.

The judge wrote that enforcement methods, such as vehicle stops and apartment building raids, "are guaranteed to bring many nontargets without lawful status—who nonetheless have strong ties to the community and are not flight risks—face-to-face with ICE. Beyond anecdotal evidence, the manner of these raids, and the volume of resulting arrests, strongly support the conclusion that ICE is not conducting individualized flight risk assessments before executing warrantless arrests."

The judge certified a "Warrantless Arrest Class," defined as "All persons since January 20, 2025, who have been arrested or will be arrested in this District by immigration officers without a warrant and without a pre-arrest, individualized assessment of probable cause that the person poses a flight risk," and granted a preliminary injunction to "enjoin further violations of the individualized-assessment-of-flight-risk requirement."

The order stated, "defendants shall not effect warrantless arrests in this District unless, pre-arrest, the arresting officer has probable cause to believe that the individual is in the United States in violation of United States immigration laws and probable cause that the person being arrested is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained."