A federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois voided thousands of ICE detainers requesting that deportable aliens and others be held in custody for 48 hours after their normal release to accommodate Agent pickup. The ruling invalidates all detainers issued by the Chicago ICE Field Office to a state, county or local law enforcement agencies in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin plus some detainers sent to agencies in 24 other states.

Judge John Lee, an Obama appointee, ruled that issuing detainers exceeds ICE’s warrantless arrest authority under federal immigration laws. He ordered ICE to obtain a warrant for every individual before issuing a post-release detainer.

Writing in Conservative Review, Daniel Horiwitz said the ruling “will have the effect of creating a judicial sanctuary for sanctuary cities and prevent the Obama administration from detaining even the few illegal aliens they are pursuing…[F]or the Obama administration to issue a detainer, that individual has to be a pretty nefarious character, given the fact that he has declined to deport even most criminal aliens…The consequences of this decision are devastating because it [could] codify sanctuary city policies into law everywhere, even where local law enforcement actually follows federal law.”

Immigration detainers undergird much of ICE’s interior immigration enforcement efforts since Agents cannot always be available to pick up individuals upon their release, and cannot always obtain a warrant in time. As such it increases the likelihood that deportable aliens will be released to the streets in at least six states and disappear before they can be captured and placed in federal detention facilities.

Read more here.