A federal judge ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday to immediately train its Colorado employees about how to lawfully perform warrantless arrests, after the evidence showed officers had little understanding of the requirements.

U.S. District Court Senior Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote that ICE had “materially violated” his prior order that directed immigration employees to make and document their evaluations of flight risk when arresting people without warrants.

“The PI could not have been clearer: for every warrantless arrest, the arresting officer must document in the I-213 (arrest report) that the arrest was executed without a warrant,” wrote Jackson in a May 12 order. “Despite this, not one of the 36 I-213s that have been produced pursuant to the PI Order complies with this mandate.”

Consequently, Jackson required ICE to develop a “compliant training program” within 14 days. The agency must then train every immigration officer who makes warrantless arrests. Anyone who does not complete the training within 45 days cannot perform warrantless arrests in Colorado.

To make a warrantless immigration arrest, federal law requires officials to have probable cause that a person is both in the country illegally and that they are “likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.” Jackson handed down an injunction on Nov. 25, directing ICE to follow the law and to provide documentation to the attorneys for various plaintiffs who were subjected to the unlawful arrests.

However, on March 4, the plaintiffs asked Jackson to direct ICE to train its employees anew. They alleged the I-213 arrest forms they received from the government pursuant to Jackson’s order “universally fail to adhere” to his injunction.

“It is as if this court’s order never happened. By and large, the reports do not include any mention of flight risk, let alone specific, articulable facts that the person was likely to escape before a warrant could be obtained,” attorney Anna Kurtz with the ACLU of Colorado told Jackson during a March 10 hearing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brad Leneis did not deny the existence of improper arrests after Jackson’s injunction. Rather, he contended the mistakes happened early on and were limited to only some ICE personnel.

“You’re not gonna see a recalcitrant agency. You’re gonna see one that’s working to comply with the court’s order,” said Leneis.

Jackson, a Barack Obama appointee, heard from three deportation officers who were permitted to testify without using their full names. The men, who had between six and 12 years of experience at the agency, struggled to describe what changed for them after Jackson ordered the government to follow the requirements of the warrantless arrest law.

The officers had a “shallow understanding” that gave Jackson “no confidence” that they understood their legal responsibilities, he wrote.

Jackson also determined that, on some occasions, ICE officers who did not engage in the required analysis were obtaining field warrants, but only after they placed a person under arrest. Moreover, the failure to clearly document employees’ actions “confounds effective oversight.”

“The Court finds that ICE officers have continued to effect warrantless arrests without making individualized probable cause determinations of the likelihood of escape in defiance of (the law) and the PI,” he wrote, “and they have entirely failed to document these arrests in the manner prescribed. That is enough to merit relief.”

Although Jackson did not grant all of the plaintiffs’ requests, he required ICE to demonstrate that the agency has completed the necessary training and to provide the plaintiffs’ lawyers with the new training materials.

Jackson declined to rule on the legality of ICE officers’ use of field warrants to arrest people they have already encountered. Instead, he only clarified that field warrants must come before the arrest in order to be lawful.

“If ICE could shield every arrest,” he wrote, “simply by writing ‘field warrant,’ or the equivalent, on an I-213, regardless of the facts of the encounter or when it was issued, the PI would be rendered toothless.”

Jackson also expanded the documentation ICE must provide to the plaintiffs’ lawyers to include all arrest reports in Colorado based on field encounters going forward.

Finally, he declined to find that the government violated his prior order “on a widespread basis across the state.”

Although Jackson reiterated that ICE violated his order, “the most blatant violations occurred in the greater Denver metropolitan area,” and he was unable to say the noncompliance extended statewide.

The case is Ramirez Ovando et al. v. Mullin et al.