Trump's ICE found to be violating legal agreement by federal judge

A federal judge has found that the Trump administration's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Chicago are violating a 2022 consent decree by conducting arrests without a warrant and without proper risk assessment.

According to a report by Block Club Chicago, the ruling stems from a suit filed in March alleging "that such arrests violated a three-year consent decree banning warrantless arrests unless agents have probable cause to believe someone is in the United States unlawfully and is a flight risk."

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings handed down the ruling initially on Tuesday, finding the National Immigration Justice Center and Illinois American Civil Liberties Union had shown 22 ICE arrests violated the consent decree — a matter which drew attention the next day by American Immigration Council fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick in a post on X.

"BIG development in Chicago," wrote Reichlin-Melnick, a frequent critic and watchdog of immigration arrests. "A federal judge finds that ICE was violating a 2022 settlement by conducting warrantless immigration arrests without individualized assessments as to whether targets were 'likely to flee.' He extends the settlement through February 2026 as a result."

This comes soon after the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to allow, at least for the time being, the explicit use of racial profiling in immigration arrests in California, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh providing what experts widely criticized as a dismissive and unrealistic argument for why excessive force in these cases didn't matter.

It also comes as Trump ramps up his threats to send not just immigration agents to Chicago, but the military as well, prompting furious pushback from city and Illinois state officials. Trump has responded by demanding that officials who criticize his policies, like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, to be imprisoned.