A federal judge in New York has removed a Justice Department lawyer from a class-action case over warrantless immigration arrests, in a rare public sanction that now threatens the government's entire defence. U.S. District Judge Sanket J. Bulsara of the Eastern District of New York on Monday barred Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas R. Price from ever appearing again in Benitez v. Department of Homeland Security, after finding that a Nov. 4 government letter signed by Price misrepresented the scope of another judge's injunction on immigration arrests, Just Security reported on Tuesday.
Source: Just Security
At a hearing on Monday, before issuing the sanction, Judge Bulsara said the Nov. 4 letter was written in "bad faith, a deliberate attempt to mislead the Court, perpetuate a fraud on the tribunal," and violated the obligations of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure — the rule that requires lawyers to certify that what they tell a court is factually correct and not frivolous. Disqualification of a government lawyer from a case is unusual, and the judge signalled that formal Rule 11 sanctions may follow.
Source: Just Security
The order: supervisors take over, and a default-judgment warning
Monday's written order requires supervisors in the U.S. Attorney's Office to handle the case going forward, and sets Monday, Nov. 16, 2026 as the deadline for the government to contest the Rule 11 sanctions. In the order's starkest passage, the court stated: "should the Court discover any future misrepresentation or false statement (either by counsel or any witness or declarant): after an opportunity to be heard, should preliminary findings be confirmed, the Court will enter a default judgment in this case in favor of Plaintiffs." A default judgment would hand the plaintiffs a win without a trial on the merits.
Source: Just Security
Price may not be the only lawyer removed. Judge Bulsara said he would likely reach the same remedy of disqualification for two other assistant U.S. attorneys whose names appeared in the signature block of the Nov. 4 letter, unless they can show they were not involved in drafting, reviewing or submitting it. Monday's order instructs the two attorneys to file sworn declarations by Nov. 16 describing "the extent to which they edited, supervised, and/or wrote any portion" of the letter.
Source: Just Security
The judge also addressed Richard Hayes, head of the civil division at the U.S. Attorney's Office, directly. "You should think about whether you want to swap him out and have some other lawyer from your office appear in any of his cases before me," Judge Bulsara warned. "Your office is on notice." Hayes did not respond to the misconduct allegations at the hearing, instead asking for time to review the transcript, according to Just Security's account of the hearing.
Source: Just Security
One order in a second case, two very different readings
The fight turns on an injunction issued in a separate habeas case in the same district, Sanchez Alfaro v. Mullin. On May 18, 2026, U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown issued a district-wide order stating: "Before effecting a civil immigration arrest in this judicial district, ICE shall obtain a valid warrant of arrest in advance, except when an immigration officer has reason to believe that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained." The Eastern District of New York covers Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island — home to some of the largest immigrant communities in the United States, including the Punjabi and South Asian neighbourhoods of Queens.
Source: Immigration Analytics
Judge Bulsara had asked both sides on Oct. 21 how the Sanchez Alfaro order affects Benitez. The government's Nov. 4 answer, signed by Price, said the May order "imposed relief as to the petitioner there only" and "did not impose any injunction on Defendants applicable to this action." Judge Bulsara said he was "flabbergasted" by that response, explaining that when he issued his own order in Benitez he had expected parts of the plaintiffs' request were already covered by the existing Sanchez Alfaro injunction: "I actually did it fully expecting I was giving a gift horse to the respondents... so what I got back here was astounding."
Source: Just Security
What convinced the judge the misreading was deliberate, he said, was Price's own record in the earlier case: briefs Price filed in Sanchez Alfaro had argued that it would be difficult to comply with the district-wide directive — which, the judge reasoned, showed the lawyer knew the order was district-wide when he later described it as applying to one man only. Judge Bulsara noted that Judge Brown had also accused Price of misconduct, calling the government's arguments in one Sanchez Alfaro order "both factually incorrect and legally spurious." He concluded there was "a pattern of dissembling, obfuscation, and frankly outright misrepresentation that bled from Alfaro into this case."
Source: Just Security
The case underneath: warrantless arrests across New York
Benitez v. DHS, filed on April 8, 2026 by eight individual plaintiffs and the Workers' Center of Central New York, alleges — the allegations have not been proven in court — that officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection have engaged in a practice of stopping and arresting people in New York on the basis of their ethnicity and without the warrants or legal basis the law requires. The plaintiffs, represented by the Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road New York and Covington & Burling LLP, claim violations of the Fourth Amendment, equal protection and the immigration statute itself. Their court filing cites 9,346 immigration arrests in the greater New York City area and 4,094 elsewhere in New York State between Jan. 20, 2025 and March 10, 2026.
Source: Legal Aid Society
The named plaintiff, Rene Benitez, has lived in New York for 14 years and has no criminal history, according to the court's earlier ruling in his related habeas case. That ruling describes officers in an unmarked vehicle stopping him as he drove his daughter to school, and detaining him after he stepped out of the car rather than expose her to force. The legal question at the centre of both cases is narrow and old: Section 1357(a)(2) of the immigration law allows a warrantless civil immigration arrest only when the officer has reason to believe the person is in the country unlawfully and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.
Source: Immigration Analytics
If Judge Brown's order binds ICE across the whole Eastern District, an officer in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island or Long Island generally needs a valid arrest warrant in hand before a civil immigration arrest — unless the officer can point to a specific reason the person is likely to flee before a warrant can be obtained. If the government's narrower reading had stood, that advance-warrant requirement would have applied to one petitioner only. For diaspora families in Queens and Long Island, that difference decides what agents must carry when they knock on a door or stop a car.
What happens next
Three dates and decisions now control the case. First, the Nov. 16 deadline: the government must decide whether to contest the Rule 11 sanctions, and the two other prosecutors named on the letter must explain their roles under oath. Second, Judge Bulsara must still rule on the scope question itself — whether the May 18 warrant requirement binds ICE district-wide inside Benitez — a ruling the losing side is likely to appeal. Third, the default-judgment warning now hangs over every future filing the government makes in the case: one more confirmed misrepresentation, after a hearing, and the case ends in the plaintiffs' favour. The Justice Department had not publicly responded to the sanction in the reporting reviewed for this story.
Source: Immigration Analytics