Colorado judge forces ICE to train agents on arrest protocol

(CN) — A federal judge in Colorado ruled Tuesday that ICE agents violated a preliminary injunction and improperly arrested people without a warrant.

Senior U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson ordered Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and others to create a training program for immigration officers in Colorado. Any U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who doesn’t complete the training within 45 days can’t make warrantless arrests. The defendants also have record-keeping duties under the order.

The ruling stems from a legal requirement that warrantless arrests can only occur if an officer has probable cause someone is in the country unlawfully and likely to escape before they can get a warrant. In October 2025, Refugio Ramirez Ovando and others argued ICE agents failed to determine whether they were flight risks before their arrests.

Later that month, after hearing from them in court, the Barack Obama appointee agreed.

“During that hearing, the court heard convincing testimony from the named plaintiffs — each of whom had deep community ties — that, after encountering them in the field, ICE made no effort to assess whether they were likely to escape before arresting them without a warrant,” Jackson wrote.

The judge issued a preliminary injunction in November 2025 preventing officers from making warrantless arrests without first determining if someone likely would flee before they could obtain a warrant. They also had to provide certain arrest records to the plaintiffs.

With those records in hand, the plaintiffs filed a motion to enforce the preliminary injunction in March — a filing that resulted in Jackson’s Tuesday decision.

The plaintiffs accused ICE of not complying with the order, arguing the arrest records aren’t compliant with warrantless arrest requirements.

“They also allege that 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 while saying they’ve experienced “issues” with the arrest documentation.

Examining the evidence, which includes testimony from four ICE agents, Jackson determined the agency’s training efforts on warrantless arrests haven’t been sufficient. Agents don’t properly understand their obligations about lawful, warrantless arrests, he said. Also, they’ve failed to properly document them as required under the preliminary injunction.

“At the same time, ICE has, in many cases, failed to note when an arrest was made pursuant to a warrant,” the judge wrote. “While this latter failure is not a violation of the PI, it has made it very difficult to discern the precise extent of ICE’s noncompliance with respect to warrantless arrests.”

ICE agents can obtain field warrants to take someone into custody. However, that must happen before someone is arrested. They can’t detain someone when the only reason is to get the field warrant.

As an example, Jackson pointed to the January arrest of a Mexican man named D.C.C., who was approached by agents outside a construction site and asked to identify himself. When he said he was from Mexico, they arrested and handcuffed him.

“Accordingly, the court concludes that, at least on some occasions, arrests that ICE claims are made pursuant to field warrants are, in fact, warrantless,” Jackson wrote.

Turning to record-keeping requirements, Jackson wrote that arresting officers must state when a warrantless arrest occurs. However, none of the records provided to the plaintiffs under the preliminary injunction comply with that requirement. The records also don’t include someone’s community ties and specific facts that support an argument someone would escape before agents could get a warrant.

The federal government argued another order wasn’t needed, as it’s trending toward complying with the preliminary injunction. However, Jackson wrote that, in effect, that means they failed to comply and there currently could be less noncompliance.

That led him to order further training for ICE agents, which includes the “likeliness of escape” standard. The judge denied a plaintiff request that the feds provide them with the training materials and communication used to ensure compliance.

“This is a profoundly important decision for the rule of law and the people of Colorado,” said Tim Macdonald, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, in a statement. “The court made clear that ICE is not above the law and cannot continue to violate the law. The decision ensures that we can monitor ICE’s behavior going forward and continue to work to prevent unlawful warrantless arrests across the state.”

The U.S. Department of Justice couldn’t be reached for comment.