The Trump administration urged a New York federal court to dismiss a proposed class action accusing it of making unlawful warrantless immigration arrests, arguing Friday the plaintiffs lack standing because they haven't been detained again, nor shown they will be.

A group of Latino New Yorkers who say they were subjected to warrantless immigration arrests also haven't identified any final agency action, decision or guidance supporting their claims of a "dragnet" warrantless immigration arrest policy without the requisite reasonable suspicion, the administration added, and their request for a preliminary injunction for arbitrary and capricious agency action must similarly fail. Before an immigration officer conducts a warrantless immigration arrest, both U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection already require that an officer first determine that an individual is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained, the administration stressed.

"The policies plaintiffs seek are already in place," the administration said in its opposition brief, adding that reasonable suspicion can be established by an individual making incriminating statements or failing to produce documentation, but their race or ethnicity alone cannot be used as a basis for law enforcement action. "Courts have long rejected the past must be prologue theory of standing for an injunction against future conduct based on fears and speculation that unlawful government conduct will happen in the future because it happened in the past."

And to the extent that the plaintiffs allege an unwritten practice of unlawful warrantless immigration arrests, that would not constitute a final agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act either, the government said.

The plaintiffs filed their proposed class action in April, alleging that "roving bands of masked and heavily armed federal agents" in New York have caused targeted communities to live "under a state of siege." They sued alongside the advocacy group Workers' Center of Central New York.

The plaintiffs then sought a preliminary injunction days later, asking the court to block the administration from conducting any warrantless immigration arrests without first making an individualized assessment of a person's escape risk.

But the administration further noted on Friday that "not a single plaintiff has been arrested a second time," adding that the risk of rearrest is even further reduced for some plaintiffs, since courts have separately granted them habeas relief and placed limits on their redetention.

As for WCCNY, the administration said the organization similarly lacks standing because it has not stated that any of the individual plaintiffs are members, and because "the lack of imminence that defeats the individual plaintiffs' standing also defeats WCCNY's standing."

If the court does award a preliminary injunction, the administration said it should not apply to individuals subject to a final order of removal. The Second Circuit and several judges in the district have already held that provisions in Section 1252 of the Immigration and Nationality Act ban courts from preventing ICE from carrying out removal orders, it said.

"New York state is a priority for immigration enforcement, and the proposed PI would throw a central element of immigration enforcement — immigration arrests — into intolerable uncertainty," the government further maintained. "Indeed, as shown by plaintiffs' proposed PI order, such an injunction would inject the judiciary (and plaintiffs' counsel) into micromanaging every operation and stop conducted in New York State. That is untenable."

A representative for the plaintiffs declined to comment Friday. Representatives for the federal government did not respond to a request for comment.

The plaintiffs are represented by Meghna Philip, Hasan Shafiqullah, Brian Perbix and Evan Henley of the Legal Aid Society, Amy Belsher, Ifeyinwa Chikezie, Wafa Junaid and Molly Biklen of the New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Paige Austin and Harold Solis of Make the Road New York, and Mark Gimbel, Giovanni Scarcella, Cecile Duncan, Jeffrey Cao and Jillian Feirson of Covington & Burling LLP.

The government is represented by Thomas Price, Marika Lyons, Philip DePaul and Justin Kirschner of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.

The case is Benitez et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security et al., case number 2:26-cv-02082, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

--Editing by Adam LoBelia.

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