Attorney General Ellison asks court to uphold legal safeguards on ICE warrantless arrests

Joins coalition of 22 AGs in amicus brief in arguing ICE agents need to follow existing legal limits Congress already approved

September 8, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison today joined a coalition of 22 attorneys general in urging a federal appeals court to uphold a lower court order that requires U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to comply with legal safeguards when making warrantless arrests.

Federal law allows immigration officers to make an arrest without a warrant only when there is probable cause to believe a person is unlawfully present and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained. In Ramirez Ovando v. Mullin, a federal district court in Colorado issued a preliminary injunction after finding that ICE officers had made unlawful warrantless arrests without determining whether individuals were likely to escape before a warrant could be obtained. The court later found that ICE continued making arrests in violation of the injunction. Federal officials appealed the injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. In an amicus brief to the Tenth Circuit, Attorney General Ellison and the coalition argue that the preliminary injunction against ICE serves the public interest by requiring federal immigration officers to comply with existing legal guardrails.

“No one is above the law, and no one is beneath it,” Attorney General Ellison said. “It is in every American’s interest that law-enforcement agencies obey the limits of the law. This is the simple premise of our request that the appeals court uphold the ruling that requires ICE to comply with basic legal safeguards when making warrantless arrests. These limits protect everyone.”

The brief emphasizes the importance of the existing flight-risk requirement, which prevents federal agents from making warrantless arrests without an individualized determination that a person is likely to flee. The states argue that disregarding this safeguard creates widespread consequences, including reduced school attendance, disruptions to businesses and local economies, avoidance of medical care, and diminished trust in all law enforcement agencies that can make victims and witnesses less likely to report crimes to local police.

Attorney General Ellison and the coalition argue that the injunction does not interfere with lawful federal immigration enforcement. Instead, it requires immigration officers to operate within the limits Congress already established and protects the public from the broader harms caused when federal agents act outside their lawful authority.

Joining Attorney General Ellison in the amicus brief are the attorneys general Colorado and California, who co-led it, and the attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.