In Escobar Molina v. DHS (December 2), a federal district court enjoined DHS and ICE from conducting warrantless civil immigration arrests — including sweeps and arresting those standing in Home Depot parking lots — in Washington, D.C. that do not comply with the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(2). That provision allows a warrantless civil arrest only when an officer has probable cause both that a person is in the U.S. unlawfully and that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.

After President Trump’s August 11, 2025 “crime emergency” declaration, federal officers launched mass immigration sweeps. An AP-based analysis in the record showed 943 immigration arrests in D.C. between August 7 and September 9, 2025, more than 40% of all arrests in that period.  Officers in plain clothes and unmarked cars often seized people without warrants, without confirming identity, and without asking anything about escape risk.

The government defended this by claiming that civil immigration arrests could be made on “reasonable suspicion,” that its officers were in practice applying a probable-cause standard anyway, and that the presidential emergency and DHS directives justified rapid, sweeping enforcement.  The court rejected all of this, holding that no internal policy or emergency order can override the explicit probable-cause and escape-risk requirements Congress wrote into the INA.

The actual wording in the INA:

“(a) Any officer or employee of the Service authorized under regulations prescribed by the Attorney General shall have power without warrant—

…

(2) to arrest any alien in the United States, if he has reason to believe that the alien so arrested is in the United States in violation of any such law or regulation and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest but the alien arrested shall be taken without unnecessary delay for examination before an officer of the Service having authority to examine aliens as to their right to enter or remain in the United States;”

Numerous court decisions dating back to 1975 have said that “reason to believe” means probable cause.