The Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit against a Columbus, Ohio municipal court, arguing its new rule barring immigration arrests without a judge-issued warrant obstructs federal law and puts ICE officers in danger.
The suit, filed Tuesday, targets Franklin County Municipal Court and its Rule 2.10, a local policy that prohibits civil arrests of anyone present at the courthouse for a proceeding or other lawful business unless officers carry a warrant signed by a judge. The DOJ named Administrative and Presiding Judge Jessica D'Varga and court security director Enoch White as defendants in their official capacities, Fox News reported.
Federal prosecutors want a judge to declare Rule 2.10 unlawful and block the court from enforcing it against federal officers. The core argument is straightforward: the Constitution's Supremacy Clause does not let a local court rewrite the terms under which federal agents carry out their duties.
The DOJ's complaint rests on a basic conflict between what federal immigration law permits and what Franklin County now demands. Under federal statute, ICE agents can make arrests using administrative warrants, documents issued by federal immigration officials, not judges. In some cases, agents can arrest someone without any warrant at all, including when they have reason to believe a person is in the country illegally and is likely to flee before a warrant can be obtained.
Rule 2.10 overrides that framework inside the courthouse. By requiring a judicial warrant for any civil arrest on its premises, the court effectively tells ICE: get a judge to sign off, or don't bother showing up.
The rule itself includes language stating it should not be interpreted to violate the Supremacy Clause or federal immigration law. But the DOJ's lawsuit treats that disclaimer as window dressing. If the rule's practical effect is to block federally authorized arrests, the savings clause does not fix the constitutional problem.
Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate, who heads the DOJ's Civil Division, framed the stakes bluntly:
"This type of rule obstructs federal law enforcement and facilitates evasion of federal law by dangerous criminal aliens, despite Congress's direction that federal agents detain and remove them. Throughout the country, and including in this courthouse specifically, federal agents have routinely and safely conducted arrests. The Department of Justice is committed to protecting that important federal prerogative."
The DOJ complaint includes a detail that underscores the real-world cost of the policy. Two Columbus ICE officers were hospitalized after encountering violence during at-large arrests over the past three months. The complaint does not identify the officers or describe the specific incidents, but the implication is clear: when courthouse arrests become unavailable, agents are forced into less controlled settings where the risks climb.
The numbers back that up. A courthouse or jail arrest may require just two officers. An arrest in the field, at a home, workplace, or public location, typically requires four to six. That means longer surveillance, more personnel, and more unpredictable encounters.
Before Rule 2.10 took effect, ICE made at least 12 arrests at Franklin County Municipal Court over recent years. Agents coordinated with courthouse security and generally waited until hearings ended before approaching their targets. The DOJ describes that history as routine and safe.
Now those arrests have shifted to streets, parking lots, and front doors, settings where officers cannot control who else is present or what happens next.
The complaint traces the rule's origins to January, when Franklin County Municipal Court began discussing changes to its arrest policy. The DOJ says the discussions came amid pressure to prevent ICE from making civil arrests at the courthouse. By March, the proposed rule had been published for public comment. It was adopted sometime after that, though the exact date does not appear in the complaint.
The rule invokes separation-of-powers language, asserting that "the administration of justice... cannot be impeded by the other branches of the government." That framing positions the court as defending its own independence against executive overreach.
But the DOJ sees it differently. Federal immigration enforcement is not an intrusion on judicial independence, it is a constitutionally authorized function that local courts cannot veto. The Supremacy Clause exists precisely to prevent state and local bodies from erecting barriers to federal law, and the DOJ's complaint treats Rule 2.10 as exactly that kind of barrier.
Neither Judge D'Varga nor Enoch White has publicly responded to the lawsuit. The court has not issued a statement addressing the DOJ's claims.
Franklin County's rule fits a broader pattern of local institutions attempting to limit where and how ICE operates. Courthouses have become a particular flashpoint because they are one of the few places where illegal immigrants with pending criminal cases are virtually guaranteed to appear. Remove that option, and federal agents lose one of their most efficient, and safest, tools for locating people Congress has directed them to detain and remove.
The DOJ's lawsuit asks the court to resolve the question head-on: does a local court rule trump a federal statute? The answer, under two centuries of Supremacy Clause precedent, is not complicated. What is striking is that a municipal court in Columbus thought it could write the answer differently.
When local officials force federal agents out of controlled settings and into the field, and those agents end up in the hospital, the policy is not protecting anyone. It is protecting a political preference, and billing the cost to the officers who have to work around it.
