(CN) – A federal judge in Colorado ruled on Tuesday that ICE agents violated a warrant and improperly arrested people without a warrant.
Senior US District Judge R. Brooke Jackson ordered Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and others to create a training program for immigration officers in Colorado. Any US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who does not complete the training within 45 days cannot make arrests without a warrant. The defendants also have record-keeping duties as ordered.
The ruling stems from a legal requirement that warrantless arrests can only occur if an officer has probable cause that someone is in the country illegally and is likely to flee before obtaining a warrant. In October 2025Refugio Ramirez Ovando and others argued that ICE agents failed to determine whether they were flight risks before arresting them.
Later that month, after hearing them in court, Barack Obama’s nominee agreed.
“During that hearing, the court heard compelling testimony from the named plaintiffs — each of whom had deep ties to the community — that, after meeting them on the ground, ICE made no effort to assess whether they were likely to flee before arresting them without a warrant,” Jackson wrote.
The judge issued a preliminary injunction in November 2025 preventing officers from making arrests without a warrant, without first determining whether someone would flee before obtaining a warrant. They also had to provide plaintiffs with several arrest records.
With that data in hand, the plaintiffs filed a motion to enforce the preliminary injunction in March — a filing that resulted in Jackson’s ruling on Tuesday.
The plaintiffs accused ICE of noncompliance with the warrant, arguing that arrest records do not comply with warrantless arrest requirements.
“They also allege that the defendants continue to make warrantless immigration arrests without conducting the mandatory pre-arrest, individualized flight risk determination,” Jackson wrote.
In response, the defendants denied any willful disobedience, saying they had experienced “issues” with the arrest documentation.
Examining the evidence, which includes testimony from four ICE agents, Jackson determined that the agency’s warrantless arrest training efforts have not been sufficient. Officers do not properly understand their obligations regarding lawful, warrantless arrests, he said. Also, they failed to properly document them as required by the preliminary injunction.
“At the same time, ICE has, in many cases, failed to notice when an arrest has been made pursuant to a warrant,” the judge wrote. “While this latest failure is not a PI violation, it has made it very difficult to discern the exact extent of ICE’s non-compliance with warrantless arrests.”
ICE agents can obtain field warrants to take someone into custody. However, this must happen before anyone is arrested. They can’t stop someone when the only reason is to get an arrest warrant.
As an example, Jackson pointed to the arrest in January of a Mexican man named DCC, who was approached by agents outside a construction site and asked to identify himself. When he said he was from Mexico, he was arrested and handcuffed.
“Accordingly, the court concludes that, at least in some cases, arrests that ICE claims were made pursuant to field warrants are, in fact, warrantless,” Jackson wrote.
Turning to recordkeeping requirements, Jackson wrote that arresting officers must declare when a warrantless arrest occurs. However, none of the records provided to plaintiffs pursuant to the preliminary injunction comply with this requirement. The records also do not include someone’s connections in the community and specific facts supporting an argument that someone would escape before agents obtained a warrant.
The federal government argued that another order was not necessary as it was moving towards implementing the preliminary injunction. However, Jackson wrote that, in effect, this means they failed to comply and there may actually be less non-compliance.
That prompted him to order further training for ICE agents, which includes the “possibility of escape” standard. The judge denied the plaintiffs’ request that the federations provide them with the training materials and communications used to ensure compliance.
“This is a deeply important decision for the rule of law and the people of Colorado,” Tim Macdonald, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, said in a statement. “The court made it clear that ICE is not above the law and cannot continue to break the law. The ruling ensures that we can monitor ICE’s behavior going forward and continue to work to prevent illegal warrantless arrests across the state.”
The US Department of Justice could not be reached for comment.
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