Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, the New York Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union, and Make the Road NY secured a landmark final ruling in African Communities Together and The Door v. Todd Lyons, striking down one of the Trump administration’s most extreme policies that allowed ICE agents to arrest people for showing up to immigration court. With this ruling, ICE officers cannot conduct civil immigration enforcement actions in or near immigration courthouses, except under limited circumstances, in New York City and across the nation.

The Court’s order found the government’s mass immigration court arrest policy “arbitrary and capricious” under the Administrative Procedure Act and restores pre-existing policies barring immigration courthouse arrests except in rare circumstances. Originally, the case also challenged a related 2025 Executive Office of Immigration Review policy that urged immigration judges to dismiss noncitizens’ immigration proceedings without proper procedural protections. In this order, the court dismissed that claim as “moot,” because the government had already fully and permanently rescinded it as result of an earlier order in this case.

“Immigrant New Yorkers should not have to choose between attending a required immigration hearing and risking detention, or staying away and risking a deportation order for failing to appear,” said Katie Rosenfeld, Partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP. “This ruling restores important safeguards and makes clear that ICE cannot abandon those protections without a reasoned explanation. Due process requires a meaningful opportunity to be heard, and that means people must be able to come to court without fear.”

Read the historic ruling here.