WASHINGTON—The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) has filed a brief in a California federal district court opposing a challenge by illegal aliens to warrantless arrests by Border Patrol. The illegal aliens, who were stopped in public, asked for papers, and detained when officers determined they were in this country illegally, seek to certify a class of unlawfully arrested persons, an injunction against such arrests, and to be empowered to monitor the government’s compliance with that injunction.
As IRLI points out in its brief, however, a statute requires that all challenges related to a removal action of an alien be brought in a federal appellate court, not a district court, and only after all challenges in the administrative immigration courts have been exhausted. This statute thus deprives the district court of jurisdiction to hear this case.
Also, immigration law permits warrantless arrests when immigration officers have reasonable suspicion that a person is in the country illegally and may escape before an administrative warrant can be obtained. After the arrests of the plaintiffs mentioned above, the government has provided additional training to officers on this standard, and thus, whether or not the plaintiffs’ arrests were made without reasonable suspicion, members of the proposed class are unlikely to be arrested without reasonable suspicion in the future. They therefore do not face imminent harm, as necessary for an injunction.
“This case illustrates both that the Trump Administration is determined to deport illegal aliens and that it intends to do so lawfully,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI. “Warrantless arrests are a vital tool to that end, and we hope the court does not allow this meritless case to throw a wrench in the Administration’s proper use of them.”
The case is United Farm Workers v. Noem, No. 1:25-cv-00246 (E.D. Cal.).
