{"version":"1.9","identifier":"69304ac5-5d09-4d01-b9a1-396dc9779a50","language":"en-US","title":"Judge finds ICE kept making warrantless arrests in Oregon and an officer lied in an arrest report","layout":{"columns":7,"width":1024,"margin":32,"gutter":20},"componentLayouts":{"text":{"columnStart":0,"columnSpan":7,"maximumContentWidth":720,"margin":{"top":12,"bottom":12}},"photo":{"columnStart":0,"columnSpan":7,"margin":{"top":20,"bottom":20}}},"componentTextStyles":{"default":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":18,"lineHeight":29,"textColor":"#171717"},"headline":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue-Bold","fontSize":36,"lineHeight":42,"conditional":[{"conditions":{"maxViewportWidth":480},"fontSize":28,"lineHeight":34}]},"intro":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":20,"lineHeight":28,"textColor":"#555555"},"caption":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":13,"lineHeight":19,"textColor":"#666666"},"byline":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":13,"lineHeight":20,"textColor":"#666666"},"body":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":18,"lineHeight":29,"paragraphSpacingAfter":14,"linkStyle":{"textColor":"#00704a"}}},"metadata":{"canonicalURL":"https://567politics.com/news/oregon-ice-warrantless-arrests-kasubhai-order-violation-november-2026","datePublished":"2026-11-03T00:16:05.490847Z","dateModified":"2026-11-03T00:16:45.755823Z","authors":["567 Politics staff"],"excerpt":"Judge Mustafa Kasubhai found ICE reported only 13 warrantless arrests in six months and ordered full arrest records and body-camera footage.","thumbnailURL":"https://pub-fac99da959e344fe99d810d309cef7df.r2.dev/photos/article/69304ac5-5d09-4d01-b9a1-396dc9779a50/f941cbc3db5ab55a36534c4ce2fab2ab.jpg","keywords":["policy"],"generatorName":"Frog News","generatorVersion":"1.0"},"components":[{"role":"title","text":"Judge finds ICE kept making warrantless arrests in Oregon and an officer lied in an arrest report","textStyle":"headline","layout":"text"},{"role":"intro","text":"Judge Mustafa Kasubhai found ICE reported only 13 warrantless arrests in six months and ordered full arrest records and body-camera footage.","textStyle":"intro","layout":"text"},{"role":"byline","text":"By 567 Politics staff · Published November 3, 2026","textStyle":"byline","layout":"text"},{"role":"photo","URL":"https://pub-fac99da959e344fe99d810d309cef7df.r2.dev/photos/article/69304ac5-5d09-4d01-b9a1-396dc9779a50/f941cbc3db5ab55a36534c4ce2fab2ab.jpg","caption":"The Wayne L. Morse U.S. Courthouse in Eugene, Ore. The warrantless-arrest case was filed in the Eugene division of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. · Visitor7, CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), via Wikimedia Commons","accessibilityCaption":"The Wayne L. Morse U.S. Courthouse in Eugene, Ore. The warrantless-arrest case was filed in the Eugene division of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.","layout":"photo"},{"role":"caption","text":"The Wayne L. Morse U.S. Courthouse in Eugene, Ore. The warrantless-arrest case was filed in the Eugene division of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. · Visitor7, CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), via Wikimedia Commons","textStyle":"caption","layout":"text"},{"role":"body","format":"markdown","text":"A federal judge in Oregon ruled Monday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has kept making warrantless arrests in the state without the individual escape-risk findings his February order requires. He also found that one ICE officer lied in an official arrest report.\n\nU.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai granted a motion by immigrant plaintiffs to enforce his preliminary injunction. In a 50-page opinion filed Nov. 2, he ordered new reporting and disclosure rules. The [opinion is posted by Courthouse News](https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/mjma-wamsley-order-nov-2.pdf). It says the government's records \"range from typos to outright fabrications.\"\n\n\"The presumption of regularity directs the courts to assume, unless clear evidence indicates differently, that government officials have properly discharged their duties, acted in good faith and followed required procedures,\" Kasubhai wrote. \"This presumption no longer holds for Defendants.\"\n\nThe government denied violating the order. In court filings it argued that it had \"complied with the plain language\" of the injunction and that the court lacked power to change it while an appeal is pending. ICE did not respond to requests for comment from [Oregon Public Broadcasting](https://www.opb.org/article/2026/11/02/ice-officer-lied-oregon-arrest-report-federal-judge-order/) or [Courthouse News](https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-scolds-ice-over-warrantless-arrests-in-oregon-orders-compliance/) on Monday.\n\nThe ruling adds to a run of court fights over how federal immigration officers stop and arrest people. In Southern California, the Justice Department has asked a judge to [pause her ban on race-based immigration stops](https://567politics.com/news/vasquez-perdomo-racial-profiling-injunction-stay-appeal-november-2026). Other recent cases have involved [asylum interview notices for unaccompanied children](https://567politics.com/news/judge-hurson-unaccompanied-children-asylum-interview-notice-order-october-2026) and the [2027 diversity visa lottery](https://567politics.com/news/ninth-circuit-diversity-visa-lottery-stay-october-2026).\n\n## What the February order required\n\nFederal law lets immigration officers arrest someone without a warrant only in a narrow case. The officer must have probable cause to believe the person is in the country unlawfully. The officer must also have probable cause to believe the person is \"likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.\" That rule is in 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(2) and a matching regulation.\n\nThe case began on Oct. 30, 2025, when a woman identified as M-J-M-A- filed a habeas corpus petition after ICE arrested her. A second plaintiff, Victor Cruz Gamez, joined in January. [KGW reported](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/politics/immigration-news/federal-judge-halts-warrantless-ice-arrests-oregon-emergency-order/283-35857bd5-45cf-4f8c-9d6b-d94ef76dc9b2) that Cruz Gamez, a Hillsboro grandfather with a work permit, was held for three weeks after agents looking for another man with the same name stopped him. The plaintiffs are represented by Innovation Law Lab, a nonprofit legal group.\n\nOn Feb. 4, 2026, Kasubhai barred ICE from \"making warrantless civil immigration arrests in the District of Oregon without a pre-arrest, individualized determination\" of escape risk. He certified a class of people arrested that way since late September 2025. He explained his reasons in a written opinion on Feb. 27.\n\nThe order did more than set a rule. It told the government to report every 30 days on each warrantless arrest in Oregon. Each report had to describe where the arrest happened and the person's known ties to the community, such as family, home or work. It also had to state \"the specific, particularized facts supporting the conclusion that the alien was likely to escape before a warrant could be obtained.\" The order warned that \"the use of boilerplate language may be deemed indicative of noncompliance.\"\n\nThe government filed a notice of appeal on April 6. That appeal is still pending at the Ninth Circuit.\n\n**The Oregon warrantless-arrest case**\n\n* **2025-10-30**: M-J-M-A- files a habeas petition after her arrest\n* **2026-02-04**: Kasubhai issues the preliminary injunction from the bench\n* **2026-02-27**: Written opinion explains the injunction\n* **2026-04-06**: Government appeals to the Ninth Circuit\n* **2026-09-04**: Plaintiffs move to enforce the injunction\n* **2026-09-18**: Two-day evidentiary hearing begins\n* **2026-11-02**: Kasubhai grants the motion and orders new disclosures\n\nSource: [Opinion and Order, M-J-M-A- v. Hernandez (D. Or. Nov. 2, 2026)](https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/mjma-wamsley-order-nov-2.pdf)\n\n## Thirteen reported arrests\n\nThe plaintiffs said ICE kept making warrantless arrests and then under-reported them. Kasubhai agreed.\n\nThe government's monthly reports listed very few warrantless arrests. They showed none from Feb. 5 to March 6, two in the next period, none in the one after, two from May 7 to June 5, four from June 6 to July 6, and two from July 7 to Aug. 5. The last report came with records for three arrests. After the plaintiffs asked about specific people, the government listed two more. The opinion puts the total at 13.\n\n**Warrantless arrests ICE reported to the court in each 30-day period**\n\nArrests listed in the government's monthly reports. The final report listed two but included records for three. Two more were reported only after plaintiffs asked, for 13 in all.","textStyle":"body","layout":"text"},{"role":"htmltable","html":"
Reporting periodReported warrantless arrests
Feb. 5–Mar. 60
Mar. 7–Apr. 62
Apr. 7–May 60
May 7–Jun. 52
Jun. 6–Jul. 64
Jul. 7–Aug. 52
","layout":"text"},{"role":"body","format":"markdown","text":"Source: [Opinion and Order, M-J-M-A- v. Hernandez (D. Or. Nov. 2, 2026)](https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/mjma-wamsley-order-nov-2.pdf)\n\nOther evidence pointed to far more. Amber Qureshi, co-director of the Deportation Data Project, testified that ICE's own data showed 574 arrests in Oregon from Feb. 5 to July 31. Of those, 504 were \"non-custodial,\" meaning they happened in the community rather than in a jail. Her group could not tell which of those had warrants. She said community arrests are more likely than jail transfers to be warrantless, because ICE can easily get warrants for people already in custody.\n\nICE made 186 arrests in Oregon in June, more than six times the March figure, according to a declaration from plaintiffs' counsel. Alyssa Walker Keller of the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition testified that tracked calls about ICE arrests rose from 15 in March to 92 in August. Most of those reports involved traffic stops, courthouses or parking lots. The judge also noted that about 55 habeas petitions were filed in Oregon over the same months.\n\nGovernment lawyers did not cross-examine Qureshi. They later questioned the data, noting that some arrests listed as non-custodial seemed to happen in custody. Kasubhai answered that the labels came from ICE itself. He found both witnesses credible and concluded that ICE made \"significantly more than thirteen warrantless arrests in Oregon between February 2026 and August 2026.\"\n\nAt oral argument, government lawyers said they had produced records on about 25 warrantless arrests. The judge wrote that the court \"has no evidence of those other disclosures.\"\n\n## The Medford arrest report\n\nThe opinion's sharpest findings concern a July arrest in southern Oregon. The man, identified as H-D-G-H-, is a construction worker who has lived in Medford since 2021. [The Oregonian reported](https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2026/11/ice-repeatedly-violated-court-order-on-warrantless-arrests-in-oregon-one-agent-lied-federal-judge-finds.html) that he was arrested on July 26 near Emigrant Lake while on a fishing trip with a friend.\n\nThe officer, identified as J.G., testified that he and a partner ran license plates at a Medford Walmart until they found a car whose owner was in the country unlawfully. That owner was the friend. The officers followed the car to the lake and arrested him on a warrant. H-D-G-H- testified that an agent then handcuffed him without asking his name or showing him any documents.\n\nThe written arrest report, a Form I-213, told a different story. It said a supervisor had issued a warrant for H-D-G-H- and that officers then saw \"a subject matching \\[H-D-G-H-]'s description\" in the car and \"positively identified\" him. On the stand, J.G. admitted that was wrong. He testified that he \"did not have a warrant at the time\" and \"did not even know \\[H-D-G-H-] existed\" when the car was stopped. The Oregonian quoted him telling the judge, \"I wrote this as if I already knew who the person was, but I did not.\"\n\nJ.G. described the error as an oversight. The judge did not accept that. He noted that J.G. had been a sworn police officer for several years before joining ICE. \"This Court finds that he did not make a mistake in the I-213,\" Kasubhai wrote. \"He lied in an official record to facilitate the impression he was conducting a lawful warrant-based arrest.\"\n\nJ.G. also testified that a partner filled out a field arrest warrant before the arrest. The judge gave that account \"no weight.\" He found that ICE did not serve a Notice to Appear until July 28, two days later. Under the rules, that notice must come with or before an administrative arrest warrant. He also found that the partner who signed the warrant had directed the investigation, so he was not an independent official. The judge treated the arrest as warrantless and found no pre-arrest escape-risk finding.\n\n## Other arrests in the record\n\nFour people stopped or arrested in June and July testified at the September hearing. The judge found three of the arrests unlawful under his order.\n\nA delivery driver, J-C-C-V-, was stopped in Hood River on June 19 while making Walmart deliveries. About six agents handcuffed him without asking questions or showing paperwork, he testified. He has a pending asylum case and work authorization. He was held in Tacoma, Washington, until a federal judge granted his habeas petition on Sept. 10. His arrest report listed the car and license plate of his brother, who was in the same parking lot. It also placed the arrest near Napa, California. The judge concluded that \"ICE's incompetence targeted the wrong person.\"\n\nThe government argued that a 2023 warrant allowed the 2026 arrest. Kasubhai called that \"patently contrary to law.\" Re-arrest on an old warrant requires first revoking bond or parole, and there was no evidence of that. He also admonished government counsel to make good-faith arguments, writing that \"real people's lives and liberties are at stake.\"\n\nA Eugene landscaper, H-F-M-J-, was surrounded by three vehicles at his workplace on July 3. He said masked officers asked if he had papers, then arrested him without asking his name. His report and a coworker's were nearly identical. A federal judge ordered his release the same day.\n\nThe fourth case went the other way. On June 13, agents broke the window of a car driven by a Medford man and pulled out a driver who turned out not to be their target, then released him. The judge found that was a brief stop backed by reasonable suspicion, not an unlawful arrest.\n\n## Boilerplate and \"sloppy work\"\n\nThe opinion also reviews the arrest records the government did produce. Eleven of the 13 reported warrantless arrests happened at vehicle stops.\n\nMany reports used the same sentence. One read: \"A warrantless arrest was conducted, at the time of arrest ERO Officers were unaware if the SUBJECT had any ties to the community, the arrest occurred on a public street, the SUBJECT was encountered in a vehicle likely to escape before a warrant could be issued.\" Others changed only the location or swapped in a name. \"ICE agents' boilerplate repetition of their 'unawareness' of community ties is a clear example of their failure to conduct simple law enforcement investigative duties,\" the judge wrote. \"This is sloppy work.\"\n\nThe government responded that similar facts lead to similar reports. \"The commonality of the facts does not invalidate the legitimacy of the officers' probable cause,\" its lawyers wrote. Kasubhai replied that \"vehicle stops may be similar, but they are not identical.\"\n\nOther reports cited improper reasons. One cited a man's \"lack of community ties,\" yet later noted that he had two U.S. citizen children, one serving in the Marine Corps. Two reports on brothers said that \"with the immigration status of the two passengers, there is a high likelihood of them absconding.\" The judge wrote that immigration status cannot be the basis for an escape-risk finding. Otherwise, he said, the statutory requirement \"would be utterly meaningless.\"\n\nHe also found that ICE called some warrantless arrests \"field warrant\" arrests. In one, the report said officers issued a warrant for the driver but arrested a passenger without one. In another, the government told plaintiffs a man was arrested on a field warrant. It later conceded the arrest was warrantless, but argued that a later warrant \"does not invalidate the lawful warrantless arrest.\" The judge said the court \"has no way to know how many more warrantless arrests in the District of Oregon may still be undisclosed.\"\n\n## What the judge ordered\n\nThe government argued that the court could not modify an injunction under appeal. It relied on a 2023 Supreme Court case, Coinbase v. Bielski. Kasubhai said that case was about arbitration appeals. He cited Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 62(d), which lets a court \"suspend, modify, restore, or grant an injunction\" during an appeal, as long as it keeps the status quo.\n\n\"It is not lost on this Court that Defendants have attempted an end-run around compliance with both the law and the preliminary injunction,\" he wrote. \"Until that credibility is earned, it is hereby ORDERED\" that the government:\n\n* Send the injunction's terms to its officers, employees and contractors every 30 days and certify each round to the court.\n* Re-produce all past records to the plaintiffs without redactions and keep producing them unredacted.\n* Produce, for every reporting period since February, all records tied to any civil immigration arrest in Oregon. That includes arrest warrants, I-213 reports and papers served on the person. Otherwise, it must state under oath that none exist.\n* Produce body-camera footage of all arrests on or after Sept. 1, 2026, or state under oath that none exists.\n* Respond within seven days to plaintiffs' good-faith requests about specific arrests.\n\nThe new disclosure duties cover arrests ICE says were made with warrants, not only warrantless ones. The judge said that was needed because \"many of Defendants' warrant-based arrests are in fact warrantless.\"\n\nKasubhai declined one request. The plaintiffs wanted him to bar ICE from relying on a Jan. 28, 2026, memo from ICE Director Todd Lyons on escape risk. He said it was unclear whether Oregon officers had used the memo, but the request may be renewed. He also loosened a protective order so the opinion's anonymized details could be made public.\n\n## The competing arguments\n\nThe government's broader position was stated when the injunction was first issued. \"DHS conducts enforcement operations in line with the U.S. Constitution and all applicable federal laws without fear, favor, or prejudice and will continue to do so,\" DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told KGW in February. She said officers who issue administrative warrants \"have found probable cause.\" She described the case as part of an effort by \"open-borders groups and activist judges\" to block deportations.\n\nThe plaintiffs' lawyers said the ruling showed why oversight matters. \"The people who have been unlawfully taken from their families, pulled out of their cars on their way to work, or had their windows smashed deserve to know ICE is being held accountable,\" Jordan Cunnings, Innovation Law Lab's legal director, said in a statement reported by Courthouse News and The Oregonian.\n\nKasubhai tied the case to others nationwide. He cited rulings from courts in Massachusetts, New York, Colorado, Illinois, California and Washington, D.C., that questioned ICE records or enforced orders against the agency. \"There is no telling how many other agents in Oregon engaged in similar misconduct,\" he wrote, \"which calls into question the veracity of all I-213 forms completed by ICE officers in Oregon.\"\n\n## The appeal and the new reporting cycle\n\nThe government's appeal of the February injunction remains pending at the Ninth Circuit. Monday's order adds the new 30-day certification and disclosure duties while that appeal goes on.\n\nThe Oregonian reported that Kasubhai was holding a separate hearing Monday on a June 13 arrest outside a Walmart in Albany. An ICE officer there testified that agents ran 50 to 60 license plates in the parking lot that day. For more on federal policy and courts ahead of the midterms, see the [567 Politics guide to U.S. elections](https://567politics.com/elections/united-states).","textStyle":"body","layout":"text"}]}