Federal agents can no longer make arrests without exceptional circumstances in and around three Manhattan buildings where immigration proceedings occur, a judge ruled Monday.

The decision by U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel brings an abrupt halt to a practice begun under the Trump administration that enabled agents to take into custody individuals who follow requirements to appear before immigration judges.

The arrests have resulted in dramatic scenes in courthouse hallways as those being detained were sometimes pulled away from emotional family members.

Castel said in a written decision that while there was "a strong governmental interest in enforcing immigration laws," there also was a serious interest in letting individuals attend removal proceedings and pursue asylum claims before a judge "without fear of arrest."

He noted that federal agents still can detain individuals at locations away from immigration courts and also can make arrests at immigration courthouses when there are serious threats to public safety.

He said the boundaries set out in federal policy five years ago can remain in effect, but a court case before him was likely to result in a finding that a withdrawal of that policy after President Donald Trump took office was "arbitrary and capricious."

Castel also noted that government lawyers recently reversed their position, saying they've learned that 2025 policies regarding arrests in and around courthouses set by the Trump administration did not apply to immigration courts after all.

The judge, who last year had declined to ban the practice, said the new position by government lawyers meant it was necessary to "correct a clear error and prevent a manifest injustice."

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road NY and others.

It was praised by Amy Belsher, director of the NYCLU's Immigrants' Rights Litigation.

She called it "an enormous win for noncitizen New Yorkers seeking to safely attend their immigration court proceedings."

Messages seeking comment from the Department of Homeland Security were not immediately returned. A spokesperson for Justice Department lawyers declined comment.

Castel's decision, which did not apply nationwide, pertained to immigration courts at 26 Federal Plaza, 201 Varick Street and 290 Broadway in Manhattan. New York's FBI headquarters is also located at 26 Federal Plaza, a large building across from two federal courthouses near City Hall.

The organizations first brought the lawsuit last August on behalf of immigrant advocacy groups African Communities Together and The Door.

"In the face of this administration's ongoing targeting of our young members, this decision brings us hope," said Beth Baltimore, deputy director of The Door's Legal Services Center.

"Our staff continues to work tirelessly to support Door members who were terrified to go to their required court appearances. We stand with our members to fight for those impacted by courthouse arrests, including those who remain detained, and other cruel policies," Baltimore said in a release.

When a federal judge shot down a Trump administration policy of holding immigrants without bond last December, it seemed like a serious blow to the president's mass deportation effort.

Instead, a top Justice Department official insisted the ruling wasn't binding, and the administration continued denying detainees around the country a chance for release.

By February, the district court judge, Sunshine Sykes, was fed up. Sykes, a nominee of President Joe Biden, accused Trump officials in a ruling that month of seeking "to erode any semblance of separation of powers," adding that they could "only do so in a world where the Constitution does not exist."

Hardly isolated, the case illustrates a broader pattern of defiance of lower court decisions in President Donald Trump's second term.

The failure of Trump officials to follow court orders has been highlighted most notably in individual immigration cases. But a review of hundreds of pages of court records by The Associated Press also shows an extraordinary record of violations in lawsuits over policy changes and other moves.

In the second Trump administration's first 15 months in office, district court judges ruled it was violating an order in at least 31 lawsuits over a wide range of issues, including mass layoffs, deportations, spending cuts and immigration practices, the AP's review of court records found. That's about one out of every eight lawsuits in which courts have at least temporarily blocked the administration's actions.

The Republican administration's power struggle with federal courts — which is testing basic tenets of U.S. democracy — reflects an expansive view of executive authority that has also challenged the independence of federal agencies, a president's ethical obligations, and the U.S.'s role in the international order.

The violations in the 31 lawsuits are in addition to more than 250 instances of noncompliance judges have recently highlighted in individual immigration petitions — from failing to return property to keeping immigrants locked up past court-ordered release dates.

Legal scholars and former federal judges said they could recall at most a few violations of court rulings over the full four-year terms of other recent presidential administrations, including Trump's first time in office. They also noted previous administrations were generally apologetic when confronted by judges; the Trump administration's Justice Department has been outright combative in some cases.

"What the court system is experiencing in the last year and a half is just qualitatively completely different from anything that's preceded it," said Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University who studies federal courts and is tracking litigation against the Trump administration.

Though Trump officials eventually backed down in about a third of the 31 lawsuits, legal experts say their treatment of court orders poses serious dangers.

"The federal government should be the institution most devoted to the rule of law in this country," said David Super, a constitutional law scholar at Georgetown University. "When it ceases to feel itself bound, respect for the rule of law is likely to break down across the country."

The White House's aggressive policy moves have prompted a barrage of lawsuits — more than 700 and counting.

In October, U.S. District Judge William Smith took little time to conclude Homeland Security officials were flouting one of his orders. Smith, a nominee of George W. Bush, had blocked them from making billions of dollars in disaster relief funding to states contingent on cooperation with the president's immigration priorities.

An appeals court on Friday blocked President Donald Trump's executive order suspending asylum access at the southern border of the U.S., a key pillar of the Republican president's plan to crack down on migration.

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that immigration laws give people the right to apply for asylum at the border, and the president can't circumvent that.

The court opinion stems from action taken by Trump on Inauguration Day 2025, when he declared that the situation at the southern border constituted an invasion of America and that he was "suspending the physical entry" of migrants and their ability to seek asylum until he decides it is over.

The panel concluded that the Immigration and Nationality Act doesn't authorize the president to remove the plaintiffs under "procedures of his own making," allow him to suspend plaintiffs' right to apply for asylum or curtail procedures for adjudicating their anti-torture claims.

"The power by proclamation to temporarily suspend the entry of specified foreign individuals into the United States does not contain implicit authority to override the INA's mandatory process to summarily remove foreign individuals," wrote Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.

"We conclude that the INA's text, structure, and history make clear that in supplying power to suspend entry by Presidential proclamation, Congress did not intend to grant the Executive the expansive removal authority it asserts," the opinion said.

The administration can ask the full appeals court to reconsider the ruling or go to the Supreme Court.

The order doesn't formally take effect until after the court considers any request to reconsider.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaking on Fox News, said she had not seen the ruling but called it "unsurprising," blaming politically-motivated judges.

"They are not acting as true litigators of the law. They are looking at these cases from a political lens," she said.

Leavitt said Trump was taking actions that are "completely within his powers as commander in chief."

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the Department of Justice would seek further review of the decision. "We are sure we will be vindicated," she wrote in an emailed statement.

The Department of Homeland Security said it strongly disagreed with the ruling.

"President Trump's top priority remains the screening and vetting of all aliens seeking to come, live, or work in the United States," DHS said in a statement.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that previous legal action had already paused the asylum ban, and the ruling won't change much on the ground.

The ruling, however, represents another legal defeat for a centerpiece policy of the president.

"This confirms that President Trump cannot on his own bar people from seeking asylum, that it is Congress that has mandated that asylum seekers have a right to apply for asylum and the President cannot simply invoke his authority to sustain," said Reichlin-Melnick.

Advocates say the right to request asylum is enshrined in the country's immigration law and say denying migrants that right puts people fleeing war or persecution in grave danger.

Lee Gelernt, attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the case, said in a statement that the appellate ruling is "essential for those fleeing danger who have been denied even a hearing to present asylum claims under the Trump administration's unlawful and inhumane executive order."

Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, welcomed the court decision as a victory for their clients.

The Supreme Court's conservative majority on Monday sounded skeptical of state laws that allow the counting of late-arriving mail ballots, a persistent target of President Donald Trump.

A ruling, likely to come by late June, that bars counting ballots arriving after Election Day would send officials scrambling in 14 states and the District of Columbia, just a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections to change their ballot rules.

An additional 15 states that have more forgiving deadlines for ballots from military and overseas voters also could be affected.

The legal challenge is part of Trump's broader attack on most mail balloting, which he has said breeds fraud despite strong evidence to the contrary and years of experience in numerous states. Trump has repeatedly claimed that his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 resulted from fraud even though more than 60 court decisions and his own attorney general said that argument had no merit.

While there was no explicit reference to the 2020 election, several conservative justices gave voice to some of Trump's complaints. Justice Samuel Alito wondered about the appearance of fraud in situations where "a big stash of ballots" that arrive late "radically flipped" an election.

Defending the state law, Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart pointed out that the Trump administration and its allies in the case have yet to submit a single case of fraud due to late-arriving mail ballots.

The court's liberal justices indicated they would uphold state laws with post-Election Day deadlines. "The people who should decide this issue are not the courts, but Congress, the states and Congress," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

Forcing states to change their practices just a few months before the election risks "confusion and disenfranchisement," especially in places that have had relaxed deadlines for years, state and big-city election officials told the court in a written filing.

California, Texas, New York and Illinois are among the states with post-Election Day deadlines. Alaska, with its vast distances and often unpredictable weather, also counts late-arriving ballots.

Alaska elections officials said Monday they are preparing for the fall elections under existing law. "If a ruling requires operational changes, we will work through those in coordination with the appropriate state entities to ensure compliance and to provide clear information to voters," the Alaska Division of Elections said in a statement.

Lawyers for the Republican and Libertarian parties, as well as Trump's administration, are asking the justices to affirm an appellate ruling that struck down a Mississippi law allowing ballots to be counted if they arrive within five business days of the election and are postmarked by Election Day.