Federal Judge Rules ICE Broke Law Arresting Valid Visa Holder in Suffolk

Eastern District Judge Gary R. Brown ruled that three ICE agents broke the law when they arrested William Enrique Sanchez Alfaro, 25, of Coram, in Selden in February, finding the agents detained him despite his valid juvenile immigrant visa, a valid work permit, and no arrest warrant.

Brown's written opinion was scathing. He called ICE's tactics amid President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign "a proverbial recipe for disaster" and said the arrest of Sanchez Alfaro, an immigrant from El Salvador, called into question the agents' training and the policies the agency was following as Trump pursues what Newsday characterized as the largest deportation effort in U.S. history.

The judge ordered ICE to locate and return Sanchez Alfaro's work authorization card, which agents seized at the time of the arrest. Brown also ruled that Sanchez Alfaro's protection from deportation, which ICE revoked when it arrested him, must be reinstated. Sanchez Alfaro had been released from custody days after the February arrest after his lawyer filed a habeas corpus petition, a legal maneuver that has become increasingly common as immigration attorneys seek to free clients caught in the crackdown.

Brown is no stranger to criticizing ICE's conduct in this region. In a previous ruling, the Eastern District judge lambasted an ICE holding cell in Central Islip as cold, "putrid and cramped."

The Sanchez Alfaro ruling arrives as ICE has adopted a new enforcement tactic: stationing agents outside immigration courts across the country to arrest people who appear for routine hearings. The New York Civil Liberties Union, representing immigrant advocacy organizations African Communities Together and The Door, filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York seeking to overturn Trump administration policies permitting those courthouse arrests. The suit cites 10 cases of people allegedly detained after showing up for otherwise routine immigration hearings, arguing the policies "are unlawful" and that "such arrests chill access to the courts and impede the fair administration of justice." An initial hearing in that case is scheduled for October 10.

Amy Belsher, director of Immigrants' Rights Litigation at the NYCLU, said the outcome in cases like Sanchez Alfaro's is exceptional. "Outright release is really rare in an immigration case," she said. "The court was rightfully outraged at the detention to begin with."

Attorney Gillman, one of the lawyers in a related case, said Brown's ruling carries broad implications. "As the judge wrote in his decision, the government can't just kind of change the goal post and say, 'Now we're just going to go out and arrest people without any type of process, without any type of due process,'" she said.

Statewide, four county sheriffs have newly agreed to allow ICE to detain migrants in their jails, adding to a growing infrastructure of local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on Brown's ruling or the broader pattern of arrests.