Judge Slams ICE for Abusing Power: A Deep Dive into America’s ‘Pretextual’ Missteps

A federal judge in New York recently delivered a scathing critique of immigration authorities, accusing them of engaging in “pretextual” and “discriminatory” misuse of power in the case of an immigrant who arrived in the United States as a child.

The judge’s 24-page memorandum and order highlights a growing trend among district court judges. Since the summer of 2025, numerous judges have pushed back against controversial attempts to alter how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) categorizes immigrants for detention purposes. These judicial opinions vary in tone but reflect an underlying dissatisfaction with current policies.

In the case at hand, Hesler Asaf Garcia Lanza managed to persuade U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the unlawfulness of his arrest and detention. Judge Brown, appointed by President Donald Trump, expressed unequivocal disdain for the government’s actions following Garcia Lanza’s release in the court’s recent order.

Garcia Lanza entered the U.S. at the age of 9 and was granted status under a congressionally enacted program designed to provide a pathway to residency and U.S. citizenship. This program is specifically intended for individuals who, like Garcia Lanza, have been abused or abandoned by one or both parents, making reunification impossible, as detailed in the court’s order.

The petitioner was found to have qualified for the special program because he was abused or abandoned by one or both of his parents, which rendered reunification “impossible,” the order notes.

“As a result, he earned the right to live and work in the United States pending further processes,” the order reads. “Garcia Lanza embraced this opportunity, living lawfully in the United States, graduating from college with honors and working at a career in theatrical lighting design.”

Then came the new indefinite detention policy.

The court offers an unsparing description — and cursory legal analysis — of how the new directive was applied to the petitioner:

[A]s part of ICE’s recent surge in enforcement efforts, in violation of Constitutional safeguards, statutory guarantees and regulatory restrictions, agents arrested him without a warrant. He was handcuffed, shackled and detained in a facility designed to hold charged and convicted criminals. ICE officers targeted Garcia Lanza for arrest simply because he looked like someone else for whom the agents were purportedly searching.

Once officials “discovered their mistake,” they dug in their heels.

“ICE agents nevertheless continued to detain him,” Brown writes. “As bureaucratic cover for the arrest, agents completed a post-arrest administrative warrant and then commenced baseless removal proceedings against him.”

After that, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revoked his protections under the special immigrant juvenile program, including deferred removal status and work authorization, which the judge goes on to explain and describe as “a reprehensible act of unimaginable cruelty.”

“Even after this Court set the terms and conditions of petitioner’s release, ICE imposed additional, unsanctioned conditions upon him, and then DHS imposed a hefty fine to offset the cost of his illegal apprehension,” Brown continues. “This isn’t how things are supposed to work in America.”

But that is how things are working now, the judge says, as “the problems documented in this case appear widespread.”

In July 2025, ICE issued the new policy, instructing all agents to deny bond for anyone who entered the country without “inspection,” in a memo that has since opened the floodgates of litigation and invited almost unanimous judicial condemnation over the government’s interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

Under the terms of the policy, such immigrants are to be detained “for the duration of their removal proceedings” unless granted parole — a rarer form of release. In real terms, however, the Trump administration has made clear such detentions are intended to be indefinite.

Over the past nine months, in hundreds of district court disputes, judges have considered the interplay and applicability of two distinct INA statutes which outline the government’s detention authority. Many judges have rephrased those statutes using language from a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling penned by Justice Samuel Alito.

In short, the government claims ICE has the authority to subject immigrants to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. §1225(b), which applies to “aliens seeking entry into the United States.”

Conversely, advocates for immigrants — as well as most judges who have ruled on the matter — have instead turned to 8 U.S.C. §1226(a), which applies to “aliens already present in the United States.”

Brown makes short work of the Trump administration’s arguments about §1225, chiding the government for its “oversized brief” arguing in favor of the statute and noting that it is “an argument rejected by nearly every court that has considered it.” In the end, the court finds the INA statute all but meaningless in Garcia Lanza’s case.

“Yet in this case, the 1225/1226 distinction argument misses the mark entirely: having been awarded [special immigrant juvenile] status, deferred action and work authorization, and with no removal proceeding having been commenced, the petitioner simply was not subject to arrest,” the order reads.

The judge explains that the “legislative mandate” behind the program “has been incorporated into” internal ICE policy. The judge cites the relevant portion of a policy manual which reads: “[T]he beneficiary of an approved [special immigrant juvenile] petition is treated for purposes of the adjustment application as if the beneficiary has been paroled, regardless of the beneficiary’s manner of arrival in the United States.”

The order goes on to fully reject the petitioner’s continued detention on constitutional grounds as well, finding it a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause “which protects non-citizens from arbitrary detention.” The court also piles on, invoking the language of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) — the federal statute governing agency actions — in tandem with the Fifth Amendment analysis.

“Moreover, the ‘process’ undertaken by the Government here, to wit: revoking a defined period of deferred action and work authorization following — and seemingly in an effort to justify — ICE’s patently illegal arrest and detention of petitioner, constitutes arbitrary and capricious Government action incompatible with Constitutional norms,” the order continues.

The judge offers a shot across the bow at the actions of ICE agents:

Unquestionably, the laws of human decency condemn such villainy. Equally, the laws of this nation, including the Constitution, statutory law and regulations, proscribe the illegal arrest and detention of the petitioner as well as the retaliatory termination, without notice, of the privileges associated with his [special immigrant juvenile] status. While the Executive Branch retains the right – as it has done – to set policy regarding immigration matters, it is forbidden from trampling our system of laws – a system which has safeguarded this nation for close to 250 years.

In a footnote, the court muses about a years-old case where Brown chided another immigration agency — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — for putting up “senseless bureaucratic barriers” to special immigrant status, calling them “dystopian and cruel.” In Garcia Lanza’s case, ICE’s “actions are immeasurably worse,” Brown says.

“In sum, the actions taken against petitioner not only violate statutory and regulatory protections, but were pretextual, discriminatory, arbitrary and capricious so as to run afoul of constitutional protections,” the opinion goes on.

The order grants Garcia Lanza additional relief by revoking any terms of release imposed by ICE, vacates ICE-imposed fines, and directs the agency to return his work authorization card and reinstate his period of deferred removal action.