A federal judge in California has vacated the Trump administration’s nationwide policies that expanded arrests at immigration courthouses and lengthened how long noncitizens could be held in short-term facilities, finding that the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and another government arm were “arbitrary and capricious,” according to Reuters. This comes a day after a federal judge ruled the administration illegally overhauled a citizen data program to purge voter rolls, as per CNN.
According to the report, U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California vacated ICE’s policies that had rescinded earlier limits on courthouse arrests and allowed detainees to be held in short-term cells for up to 72 hours. The judge reportedly did the same for a similar policy from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which had removed limits on courthouse arrests.
The 71-page ruling was reportedly issued in a case brought by an asylum seeker who was arrested after leaving a routine hearing at a San Francisco immigration court. Per the report, Judge Pitts, who was appointed by former U.S. President Joe Biden, effectively reinstated Biden-era policies that limited courthouse arrests to narrow circumstances and capped detentions in short-term facilities at 12 hours.
Separate ruling targets the federal database used to check voter citizenship
In a related legal development, another U.S. federal judge on Monday, June 22, ruled that a recently revamped federal tool central to the Trump administration’s efforts to nationalise elections can no longer be used, according to a report published by The Wire.
Per reports, U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan sided with advocacy groups that argued the recent upgrades to the program – called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements or SAVE – aggregated Americans’ sensitive personal data in a way that could result in voters being wrongly purged from voter rolls.
“All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan said in an order explaining the decision. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”
The judge said Congress had expressly prohibited the government from centralising Americans’ personal identifying information, and that the federal agencies that created the SAVE program “knew that the database violates those statutory protections.”
A federal judge in California vacated the Trump administration's nationwide policies expanding arrests at immigration courthouses and the duration for detaining noncitizens in short-term facilities, finding the actions of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and another…
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 24, 2026
The decision is described in the report as a major legal setback for President Trump in his efforts to use federal agencies to encourage a nationwide crackdown on having noncitizens illegally on state voter rolls. These court rulings come amid wider reporting on the administration’s approach to immigration, including how it adjusted its refugee admissions priorities.
According to The Wire, the modified SAVE system, which critics had referred to as an unlawful centralised federal database of voter information, had been a key pillar of the second election executive order the president signed earlier this year. The report stated that the ruling leaves its future uncertain.
James Percival, general counsel at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said of the SAVE ruling in a social media post, “It’s amazing how hard the Left will fight to stop us from solving problems they insist do not exist.” The same official criticized the courthouse arrest ruling on X as well, calling it “naked judicial activism in service of an anti-American, open borders agenda.”
When a judge sentences a defendant, the defendant is taken into custody. If an alien is ordered removed by an immigration judge, the same should happen. A district judge ordering otherwise is naked judicial activism in service of an anti-American, open borders agenda. https://t.co/l4WIBX2giF
— James Percival (@DHSGenCounsel) June 23, 2026
The DHS referred to Percival’s post as its comment, while the Department of Justice said that it would “continue to aggressively defend President Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda and DHS’s use of the SAVE system to verify citizenship.” DHS leadership has been reported to be weighing other sweeping measures as well, including possible restrictions on international flights.
On the courthouse arrests’ front, the US News states that previous guidance had limited arrests at courthouses to circumstances such as national security threats, imminent danger, and “hot pursuit” of someone posing a public safety risk.
The judge reportedly found that the administration failed to provide “reasoned explanations” for rescinding earlier policies, as required under the Administrative Procedure Act. “For 80 years, Congress has commanded federal agencies to think before they act,” the judge wrote, adding that the law requires “an agency at least provide sound reasons for following its chosen course.”
