A federal judge who previously ruled that conditions at San Francisco's ICE facility are inhumane for the detention of immigrants, has now temporarily halted all arrests of immigrants at courthouses in Northern California and the Pacific Islands, citing lack of due process and violations of civil rights.

It will likely be appealed by the Trump administration, and it represents just a small piece of the massive deportation machine that the administration has built over the last 11 months, but immigration courts in Northern California and the Pacific Islands will not be allowed, for now, to be used as traps where ICE rounds up innocent, law-abiding pepole to deport them.

US District Judge Casey Pitts, a Biden appointee, issued a ruling Friday that puts a pause on Homeland Security's practice of making immigration arrests at immigrations courts.

In a 67-page order, first reported on by Mission Local, Judge Pitts ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in a class-action suit, Garro Pinchi v. Noem, that was brought by the ACLU and a partner firm in October.

The suit, which challenges DHS's "re-detention" policy for immigrants previously released by the courts pending individualized determinations in their cases, was brought on behalf of three undocumented people, Frescia Garro Pinchi, Juany Galo Santos, and Jose Teletor Sente.

"In May 2025, DHS officers began re-arresting and re-detaining noncitizens whom DHS had previously released… which has resulted in a staggering wave of arrests," Pitts writes. "News reports cited by plaintiffs suggest that DHS has re-detained hundreds, if not thousands, of other noncitizens in recent months in ICE’s San Francisco area of responsibility alone... [and] While the extraordinary pace and scale of the change to DHS’s re-detention practices are clear, the reasons for it are not."

Pitts's ruling finds that DHS's actions represent the "deprivation of physical liberty by detention” and the "deprivation of constitutional rights," saying this has caused "irreparable harm" to the detained individuals and their families.

The ruling applies to ICE's "San Francisco area of responsibility," at the downtown courthouse, which includes cases across NorCal, as well as Guam, Saipan, and Hawaii.

Pitts, who previously put a halt to ICE detentions at its subpar facility on Sansome Street, found that there is no "contemporaneous rationale" for the re-detention process, and that it therefore appears "arbitrary and capricious."

The ruling certifies the class in the class-action suit, and pauses all ICE arrests until a final judgment is made.

Previously: Federal Judge Orders ICE to Stop Holding Immigrants at 630 Sansome Due to Inhumane Conditions