A group of District of Columbia residents told a federal judge future detainees should count toward the judicial block against warrantless arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The request is part of an ongoing effort by D.C. residents to attain a judicial block against warrantless ICE arrests. If successful, this block would be the second of its kind.

On November 7, 2025, the plaintiffs claimed that ICE conducted at least forty arrests without probable cause. Some of which met legal requirements under D.C. law. When questioned, the government confirmed arrests will continue unchanged. The open-ended nature of detainment operations. is why plaintiffs claim an open-ended classification is necessary.

If accepted, this judicial block to preemptively include future detainees in its classification. At least one other judicial block is in place against warrantless ICE arrests, but it only has local applications. Additionally, the judicial block takes a case-by-case approach to monitoring ICE operations. This block, according to the plaintiffs, tackles the systemic policy of ICE agents using reasonable suspicion to make arrests.

The government argued that the plaintiffs haven’t shown that there is a specific policy in place regarding warrantless arrests because probable-cause assessments are individualized. The government also argues the inclusion of potential future detainees doesn’t pass the numerosity test. The numerosity test is a legal principle requiring that the proposed class for a judicial block be large enough that issuing individual blocks is simply impractical.

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