Opinion ID: 4564885
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Gonzalez’s Individual Circumstances

Text: Finally, the Government asserts that Gonzalez is also atypical in light of the circumstances pertaining to his immigration detainer. The Government first argues that Gonzalez is unlike other class members detained pursuant to an immigration detainer because it cancelled the detainer against him within hours after he filed this suit. By 14 The Government relies on our decision in Scales v. I.N.S., 232 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. 2000), for this argument. Scales, however, concerned a presumption in a burden-shifting framework in removal proceedings. Id. at 1163. We did not hold that, nor consider whether that presumption applies to a probable cause determination of removability. 38 GONZALEZ V. USICE concluding that his claims fall within the inherently transitory exception to mootness, the district court evaluated his claims as they stood before the Government’s cancellation of the detainer. Although the Government asserts that the court confused mootness with whether Gonzalez’s claims are typical, the Government does not identify any authority showing the court’s analysis to be erroneous. A bare assertion of error does not establish an abuse of discretion. The Government argues further that because an LAPD officer incorrectly wrote on Gonzalez’s booking record that he was born in Mexico, Gonzalez has “unique” circumstances that make him atypical. The Government ignores its own stipulation in the district court that an ICE agent “issued Plaintiff Gonzalez’s detainer” because one database—the Los Angeles County Consolidated Criminal History System—“erroneously stated that [he] was born in Mexico and no records of Plaintiff Gonzalez were found in [two other databases] showing that [he] legally entered the United States or was legally present in the United States.” Howsoever the error was introduced into one of the databases, it was nonetheless an error in a database on which ICE relied to determine whether Gonzalez was removable, as the district court acknowledged at class certification. See Roy, 2016 WL 5219468, at , 15. Gonzalez’s claim is thus no different than any other class member who challenges the Government’s issuance of an immigration detainer based solely on a search of electronic databases. Gonzalez is typical of the class. Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the Probable Cause Subclass satisfied Rule 23(a)’s prerequisites. GONZALEZ V. USICE 39 B. The Certification of the Class Pursuant to Rule 23(b)(2) The district court properly certified the Probable Cause Subclass as a Rule 23(b)(2) class. Id. at . Rule 23(b)(2) provides that “[a] class action may be maintained if Rule 23(a) is satisfied and if . . . the party opposing the class has acted . . . on grounds that apply generally to the class, so that final injunctive relief or corresponding declaratory relief is appropriate respecting the class as a whole.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2). “Rule 23(b)(2) applies only when a single injunction or declaratory judgment would provide relief to each member of the class.” Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct. 830, 852 (2018) (citation omitted). The Probable Cause Subclass is narrowly defined to include only those individuals against whom ICE issued an immigration detainer pursuant to its policy of relying solely on a search of electronic databases to make a probable cause determination. The district court properly concluded that a determination about the lawfulness of this policy under the Fourth Amendment and corresponding injunctive or declaratory relief would provide relief to the entire class. See Roy, 2016 WL 5219468, at . The Government’s assertions of error here repeat the Government’s challenges to commonality. Because we have already rejected those arguments, they fail here as well. Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the Probable Cause Subclass satisfied Rule 23(b)(2). Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s certification of this class. III. Jurisdiction to Order Injunctive Relief for the Detainer Claims Before we turn to the merits of the State Authority and Database Injunctions, we must also consider the Government’s assertion that 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1) precludes 40 GONZALEZ V. USICE the injunctive relief that the district court granted for the detainer claims underlying the classwide injunctions. The plain language of § 1252(f)(1) and the relevant statutory provisions compel us to reject the Government’s assertion. Section 1252(f)(1) is straightforward. It provides that: Regardless of the nature of the action or claim . . . , no court (other than the Supreme Court) shall have jurisdiction or authority to enjoin or restrain the operation of the provisions of part IV of this subchapter, as amended by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, other than with respect to the application of such provisions to an individual alien against whom proceedings under such part have been initiated. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1). “Part IV” is a reference to the provisions titled “Inspection, Apprehension, Examination, Exclusion, and Removal,” which currently include 8 U.S.C. §§ 1221–1232 of the INA. By its terms, § 1252(f)(1) does not, as the dissent imagines, categorically insulate immigration enforcement from “judicial classwide injunctions.” Section 1252(f)(1) places limitations on the jurisdiction and authority of district and circuit federal courts to grant injunctive relief that restrains or enjoins the operation of §§ 1221–1232. See Jennings, 138 S. Ct. at 851; Reno v. Am.-Arab Anti- Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 481 (1999). But by specifying only “the provisions of Part IV” and reinforcing its focus on only “such provisions,” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1) (emphasis added), the statute’s plain text makes clear that its limitations on injunctive relief do not apply to other GONZALEZ V. USICE 41 provisions of the INA. Unremarkably, we have repeatedly recognized this textual limitation. See Catholic Soc. Servs. v. I.N.S., 232 F.3d 1139, 1150 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc) (upholding a preliminary injunction because it was issued under “Part V” of the subchapter and thus “by its terms, the limitation on injunctive relief [in § 1252(f)(1)] does not apply to the preliminary injunction granted by the district court”); see also Gonzales v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 508 F.3d 1227, 1233 (9th Cir. 2007) (concluding that § 1252(f)(1) did not bar injunction concerning application of statutory provisions regarding adjustment of status because “as in the Catholic Social Services injunction, [the injunction] directly implicates the adjustment of status provision which falls under part V of subchapter II, notwithstanding that a reinstatement proceeding may be a collateral consequence of an unsuccessful adjustment application.” (emphasis added)). The Government tells us that the injunctions contravene § 1252(f)(1) because its detainer authority is “now codified in, among other statutes, [] §§ 1226 and 1231, both covered by § 1252(f)(1).” But the Government predicates that argument on its detainer regulation, 8 C.F.R. § 287.7. 15 “An administrative regulation, of course, is not a ‘statute.’” United States v. Mersky, 361 U.S. 431, 437 (1960). And, by its clear terms, § 1252(f)(1), places limitations only on injunctive relief that would “enjoin or restrain the operation of the provisions of Part IV[.]” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1) (emphasis added). The regulation is not a provision of Part 15 Although we reject the Government’s argument for other reasons, we observe that the Government’s argument in part rewrites its own regulation, which does not even refer to § 1231. See 8 C.F.R. § 287.7. 42 GONZALEZ V. USICE IV, and thus cannot run afoul of § 1252(f)(1). 16 Relatedly, Plaintiffs’ challenge to the legality of the Government’s detainer policies and procedures at issue here could not run afoul of § 1252(f)(1) because such procedures are not—as the Government concedes—even codified in the statutory provisions that § 1252(f)(1) encompasses. See Grace v. Barr, 965 F.3d 883, 907 (D.C. Cir. 2020) (explaining that § 1252(f)(1) “refers only to ‘the operation of the provisions’—i.e., the statutory provisions themselves, and thus places no restriction on the district court’s authority to enjoin agency action found to be unlawful.” (emphasis in original)). The Government’s assertions here avoid statutory text because none of the provisions of Part IV, let alone §§ 1226 and 1231, even refer to “detainers.” See generally 8 U.S.C. §§ 1221–1232. The only provision of the INA whose plain language refers to “detainers” is located in 8 U.S.C. § 1357 (“Powers of immigration officers and employees”), a statutory provision contained in Part IX. See 8 U.S.C. § 1357(d). That provision provides for the issuance of 16 We recognize that Congress has authorized the promulgation of regulations to carry out the provisions of the INA. See 8 U.S.C. § 1103. Whether the detainer regulation is valid pursuant to this grant of general authority, see Comm. for Immigrant Rights of Sonoma Cty. v. Cty. of Sonoma, 644 F. Supp. 2d 1177, 1199 (N.D. Cal. 2009), is not a question that we decide here. What matters here is that that general grant of authority is not located in “Part IV.” Nor, as we discuss shortly, is the only statutory provision that even refers to immigration detainers. See 8 U.S.C. § 1357(d). These deliberate structural choices by Congress— both in § 1252(f)(1) and elsewhere in the INA—determine whether § 1252(f)(1)’s limitations preclude the issuance of injunctive relief concerning detainers by district and circuit courts. See Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 431 (2009) (“[T]he Court frequently takes Congress’s structural choices into consideration when interpreting statutory provisions.”). GONZALEZ V. USICE 43 immigration detainers only when an individual is arrested for a controlled substance offense and is a suspected alien. Id. We have already recognized that “[t]he INS has authority to lodge a detainer against a prisoner under 8 U.S.C. § 1357(d).” McLean v. Crabtree, 173 F.3d 1176, 1185 n.12 (9th Cir. 1998). The Supreme Court has also recognized the distinct role that § 1357(d) plays in federal immigration law enforcement with state officials. See Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 410 (2012) (“State officials can also assist the Federal Government by responding to requests for information about when an alien will be released from their custody.” (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1357(d))). The upshot is that § 1357(d) is not located in Part IV, and thus § 1252(f)(1)’s limitations do not apply.17 See Gonzales, 508 F.3d at 1233; Catholic Soc. Servs., 232 F.3d at 1150. 17 Although its own detainer regulation is titled “detainer provisions under section 287(d)(3) of the Act”—a reference to § 1357(d)—and identifies detainers as “issued pursuant to” § 1357, see 8 C.F.R. § 287.7(a), the Government conspicuously ignored § 1357(d) in its opening brief. In its reply brief, the Government acknowledged § 1357(d) for the first time, but only to explain it away as a mere statutory road bump to the conclusion that any detainer authority necessarily arises from the provisions that § 1252(f)(1) encompasses. The dissent embraces the Government’s approach but goes further. The dissent conjectures that § 1357(d)—a provision that the Government’s own detainer regulation cites three times as a basis for issuing immigration detainers—does not actually authorize detainers at all. We cannot agree with either the Government or the dissent for the simple reason that we are not free to ignore Congress’s choice to locate the only statutory reference to immigration detainers outside the provisions that § 1252(f)(1) encompasses, even if we might disagree with that choice as a policy matter. See United States v. State of Washington,—F.3d—, 2020 WL 4814127, at  (9th Cir. Aug. 19, 2020); Planes v. Holder, 652 F.3d 991, 996 (9th Cir. 2011) (explaining that we are not free to stray from statutory text “[r]egardless of our view on the wisdom or efficacy of Congress’s policy choices”). 44 GONZALEZ V. USICE Unable to anchor its arguments in the text of §§ 1226 or 1231, the Government tells us that its detainer authority is nonetheless implied under those provisions, and thus § 1252(f)(1)’s limitations apply. 18 The dissent embraces this argument, relying on a single unpublished district court decision to surmise that any implied detainer authority must necessarily arise under the provisions that § 1252(f)(1) encompasses. See Santoyo v. United States, No. 5:16-CV855-OLG, 2017 WL 6033861, at 3 (W.D. Tex. Oct. 18, 2017). We cannot, however, “create[] out of thin air” statutory text that does not exist. Hamama v. Adduci, 912 F.3d 869, 879 (6th Cir. 2018); see also Ariz. State Bd. for Charter Sch. v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ., 464 F.3d 1003, 1007 (9th Cir. 2006) (observing that a court may not add or subtract statutory text). That is particularly true here. Whereas Congress did not include any reference to immigration detainers among the provisions to which § 1252(f)(1)’s limitations apply, Congress codified immigration detainers in a provision to which the limitations of § 1252(f)(1) do not apply. We must presume that Congress acted intentionally. See Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co., Inc., 534 U.S. 438, 452 (2002) (“When Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). Although the Government attempts to conjure an implied detainer authority in the shadow of §§ 1226 and 1231, we 18 The classes exclude individuals for whom a detainer issued pursuant to a final order of removal. Thus, the injunction could not restrain or enjoin the operation of § 1231 for this additional reason. Nevertheless, we address the Government’s arguments on their terms. GONZALEZ V. USICE 45 observe further that the detainers here do not directly implicate the authority of those provisions. Section 1231 codifies the Attorney General’s authority to remove and detain aliens who are already subject to a final order of removal. 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(2), (6). The classes in this case, however, exclude individuals to whom the Government issues a detainer due to a final order of removal. Section 1226 in turn authorizes “the Attorney General” to arrest aliens “[o]n a warrant” and detain them pending removal proceedings. Id. § 1226(a), (c); see also Jennings, 138 S. Ct. at 838 (explaining that “[§] 1226 governs the process of arresting and detaining [certain] aliens pending their removal”). But it is undisputed that a detainer is not a warrant of any kind. More critically, neither DHS, nor ICE arrests or detains any individual by issuing an immigration detainer to a state or local LEA. Instead, DHS and ICE rely on the LEA to do so. Although the Government may use detainers issued to state and local LEAs with the purpose of arresting and detaining a suspected alien, the possibility that the Government may eventually arrest and detain an individual by virtue of the detainers at issue here is of no moment because the INA provisions directly implicated by such detainers fall outside § 1252(f)(1)’s scope. 19 19 Congress has addressed the arrest and detention authority of state and local LEAs for aliens, and delimited ICE’s role in provisions to which § 1252(f)(1)’s limitations do not apply. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252c(a) (provision located in Part V and is thus also outside the scope of § 1252(f)(1)). And Congress has addressed elsewhere ICE’s authority to make a warrantless arrest of an individual who ICE has “reason to believe” is a removable alien, 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(2), the authority of state and local LEAs to carry out federal immigration functions, id. § 1357(g), and the ability of such LEAs to cooperate with the Federal Government specifically on the issue of detainers, id. § 1357(d). None of these provisions is located in Part IV. 46 GONZALEZ V. USICE Our task here is simple: “when the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, it’s no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.” Bostock v. Clayton County, 140 S. Ct. 1731, 1737 (2020). 20 The written word of the INA is quite clear: none of the provisions that § 1252(f)(1) encompasses refers to immigration detainers. It follows that § 1252(f)(1)’s limitations on injunctive relief do not apply, and thus do not compel vacatur of the injunctions for lack of jurisdiction or authority by the district court to grant such relief. We therefore turn to the merits of the injunctions. IV. The State Authority Injunction The State Authority Injunction permanently enjoins ICE “from issuing detainers seeking the detention of Probable Cause Subclass members to law enforcement agencies in states that lack state law permitting state and local law enforcement agencies to make civil immigration arrests based on civil immigration detainers only.” Plaintiffs contend that this injunction is “merely an alternative basis” on which the district court granted relief to the Probable Cause Subclass. Because the class is defined in part by ICE’s reliance on electronic database searches to issue immigration detainers, Plaintiffs argue that we should 20 The dissent objects to the analysis here in part because of the consequences that it speculates will ensue, namely, that some future plaintiffs could challenge the regulation, or the possibility that the Government’s detainer “enforcement tools” could be affected by an injunction at some point. These extratextual considerations are insufficient to tip the statutory scales in favor of the Government’s desired outcome, or the dissent’s approach. See Bostock, 140 S. Ct. at 1737. GONZALEZ V. USICE 47 limit our analysis to the Database Injunction to avoid the constitutional issues underlying the State Authority Injunction. We are unpersuaded. That both injunctions pertain to the same class does not render “alternative” the State Authority Injunction’s imposition of, as Plaintiffs recognize, “totally independent” restrictions with distinct legal and factual issues. There are also no constitutional questions to avoid because, as discussed in Part V, the Database Injunction is infirm. Thus, we must decide the merits of the State Authority Injunction. 21 At the outset, we must clarify what we do not decide here. In issuing the State Authority Injunction, the district court relied on principles of preemption and federalism to reason that a state “must consent to the delegation of federal immigration functions,” in the absence of which ICE violates the Fourth Amendment by issuing an immigration detainer. Gonzalez, 416 F. Supp. 3d at 1015. But neither Plaintiffs’ operative complaint, nor the final pre-trial order hinted at claims against the Government premised on preemption or federalism. Here, Plaintiffs disavow reliance on preemption principles. And, although we have noted the federalism concerns that immigration detainers may raise, City & County of San Francisco v. Trump, 897 F.3d 1225, 1241 n.7 (9th Cir. 2018), Plaintiffs do not raise and have therefore waived any federalism arguments concerning the State Authority Injunction. See United States v. Dreyer, 21 The Government perfunctorily suggests that the State Authority Injunction is invalid because the district court permitted Plaintiffs to raise the underlying claim before trial. The Government, however, failed to brief and thus has waived this issue. Cal. Pac. Bank v. Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., 885 F.3d 560, 570 (9th Cir. 2018). 48 GONZALEZ V. USICE 804 F.3d 1266, 1277 (9th Cir. 2015) (“[A]n appellee waives any argument it fails to raise in its answering brief.”). The only issue that we must decide is whether state law restrictions on the authority of state or local officers to enforce federal civil immigration law determine whether the Government violates the Fourth Amendment by issuing an immigration detainer. The Supreme Court’s decision in Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164 (2008), instructs that the answer is “no.” In Moore, the defendant was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute after Virginia state officers discovered crack cocaine on him as part of a search incident to his warrantless arrest for the misdemeanor of driving with a suspended license. Id. at 166–67. Moore moved to suppress the crack cocaine on the ground that his arrest violated the Fourth Amendment because driving with a suspended license was not an arrestable offense in Virginia and thus the officers lacked authority to arrest him. Id. at 167–68. In reversing the trial court’s denial of the motion, the Virginia Supreme Court “reasoned that since the arresting officers should have issued Moore a citation under state law, and the Fourth Amendment does not permit search incident to citation, the arrest search violated the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 168. The United States Supreme Court reversed. Two aspects of the Court’s analysis are key here. First, the Court reinforced the primacy of probable cause in the evaluation of whether a warrantless arrest comports with the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 171 (“[W]hen an officer has probable cause to believe a person committed even a minor crime . . . the arrest is constitutionally reasonable.”); id. at 173 (“[A]n arrest based on probable cause serves interests that have long been seen as sufficient to justify the GONZALEZ V. USICE 49 seizure.”); id. at 174–75 (explaining that even if state law restrictions somehow altered the policy interests, the Court “would adhere to the probable-cause standard . . . because of the need for a bright-line constitutional standard”). Second, the Court squarely rejected the notion that “state-law arrest limitations” dictate whether a Fourth Amendment violation has occurred. Id. at 175. The Court explained that “linking Fourth Amendment protections to state law would cause them to ‘vary from place to place and from time to time.’” Id. at 176 (quoting Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 815 (1996)). To avoid the “vague and unpredictable” consequences of tethering the Fourth Amendment to the laws of the fifty states, id. at 175, the Court held that “state restrictions do not alter the Fourth Amendment’s protections,” id. at 176. In resolving the case, the Court concluded that even if Moore’s arrest violated state law, “it is not the province of the Fourth Amendment to enforce state law.” Id. at 178. Because the officers had probable cause to believe that Moore violated state law by driving with a suspended license, his warrantless arrest and ensuing search were constitutional. Id. Plaintiffs tell us that Moore is distinguishable because it concerned criminal rather than civil arrests. We do not understand why that distinction matters to the general Fourth Amendment principles that Moore articulated concerning warrantless arrests and seizures. It is undisputed that an immigration detainer requests detention of an individual. “Detention, of course, is a type of seizure of the person to which Fourth Amendment protections attach.” Alcocer v. Mills, 906 F.3d 944, 953 (11th Cir. 2018). Moreover, those protections apply in the civil immigration context. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 881–82, 884 (1975); Alcocer, 906 F.3d at 953 (“[T]he Supreme Court long ago held that, beyond a Terry stop, any detention of a suspected 50 GONZALEZ V. USICE alien ‘must be based on consent or probable cause’ that the person is, in fact, an alien.’” (citation omitted)); TejedaMata v. Immigration & Naturalization Serv., 626 F.2d 721, 724–25 (9th Cir. 1980) (applying “the constitutional requirement of probable cause” to immigration arrests). Critically, we have already applied Moore to conclude that the absence of state authorization for a state officer to enforce federal immigration law does not render the officer’s seizure of an individual for the suspected civil immigration offense of unlawful presence in the United States a Fourth Amendment violation. See Martinez-Medina v. Holder, 673 F.3d 1029, 1031–32 (9th Cir. 2011). There, the petitioners sought to suppress evidence of alienage for an allegedly egregious Fourth Amendment violation. Id. at 1036. They argued that an Oregon deputy sheriff who had arrested them lacked state law authority to do so, pointing to a provision of Oregon law that expressly forbade law enforcement agencies from apprehending someone whose only violation of law was the violation of federal immigration law. Id. (citing Or. Rev. Stat. § 181.850). “We assume[d], without deciding, that the deputy sheriff, like the officers in Moore, violated state law when he apprehended the aliens without the authority to do so.” Id. at 1037. We nonetheless held that “the deputy sheriff’s violation of Oregon law does not constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment” and thus “cannot be the basis for finding an egregious Fourth Amendment violation.” Id. at 1036 (citing Moore, 553 U.S. at 173–74). We concluded that “like the state law violation in Moore, the deputy sheriff’s violation of Oregon law does not constitute a Fourth Amendment violation.” Id. at 1037. Martinez-Medina thus confirms Moore’s application here. GONZALEZ V. USICE 51 In finding for Plaintiffs on the State Authority Claim and entering the resulting State Authority Injunction, the district court erred by failing to account for Moore and MartinezMedina. See Gonzalez, 416 F. Supp. 3d at 1015–16. The court thereby concluded that the Government violates the Fourth Amendment by issuing a detainer to state or local LEAs in a state that does not authorize federal civil immigration enforcement. 22 Id. Thus, even when the Government has probable cause of removability, the Government would nevertheless violate the Fourth Amendment due to the happenstance of the state in which an individual is located when ICE issues a detainer. Moore, however, rejected the unpredictability and vagaries of such a regime with a bright-line rule: the constitutionality of a warrantless arrest under the Fourth Amendment does not depend on whether state law authorizes state or local officers to make the arrest, but on whether there is probable cause. Moore, 553 U.S. at 171, 176–78; Martinez-Medina, 673 F.3d at 1036–37; Brobst, 558 F.3d at 989 (concluding that Moore forecloses reliance on state law to determine whether a seizure violates the Fourth Amendment); United States v. Turner, 553 F.3d 1337, 1346 (10th Cir. 2009) (applying Moore to conclude that “because arrests made in violation of state law are not per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, it does not matter for the purposes of our analysis whether [state 22 The district court relied on the plurality decision in Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 37 (1963), for the proposition that “under the Fourth Amendment . . . the lawfulness of arrests for federal offenses is to be determined by reference to state law.” Gonzalez, 416 F. Supp. 3d at 1016. We, however, have already explained that Moore “distinguishes Ker,” including, as is relevant here, that Ker did not concern a federal offense. United States v. Brobst, 558 F.3d 982, 989–90 (9th Cir. 2009). Thus, the district court erred in relying on Ker. 52 GONZALEZ V. USICE officers] had jurisdictional authority under state law, as long as the officers’ actions were otherwise reasonable”). That issue concerns the Database Claim and Database Injunction. 23 But because “state restrictions do not alter the Fourth Amendment’s protections,” Moore, 553 U.S. at 17, the district court erred in concluding otherwise and abused its discretion in entering the State Authority Injunction. We therefore reverse and vacate the State Authority Injunction. V. The Database Injunction Plaintiffs have challenged the Government’s issuance of immigration detainers from the Central District based solely on searches of electronic databases to make probable cause determinations of removability. In finding for Plaintiffs on this Database Claim, the district court concluded that the databases are unreliable for determining probable cause of removability, and thus the Government violates the Fourth Amendment by issuing detainers based solely on searches of the databases. See Gonzalez, 416 F. Supp. 3d at 1016–21. The court enjoined the Government from issuing detainers from the Central District based solely on searches of electronic databases to make probable cause determinations of removability. We first outline Fourth Amendment 23 The Government argues that probable cause may be imputed to state or local officers who act pursuant to an immigration detainer issued by an ICE agent who has probable cause. Two of our sister circuits have suggested as much. See City of El Cenizo v. Texas, 890 F.3d 164, 187 (5th Cir. 2018) (concluding that pursuant to the “collective-knowledge doctrine” “the ICE officer’s knowledge may be imputed to local officials even when those officials are unaware of the specific facts that establish probable cause of removability”); Mendoza v. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enf’t, 849 F.3d 408, 414–15 (8th Cir. 2017) (similar). Imputation of probable cause, however, requires that probable cause exist, which still leads us to the Database Claim. GONZALEZ V. USICE 53 principles that apply here, and then turn to the factual findings and legal conclusions underlying the injunction. A. Fourth Amendment Principles The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable seizures by the government. U.S. Const. amend. IV. “The infringement on personal liberty of any ‘seizure’ of a person can only be ‘reasonable’ under the Fourth Amendment if we require the police to possess ‘probable cause’ before they seize him.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 38 (1968) (emphasis added); see also Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98, 102 (1959). “[P]robable cause is a fluid concept—turning on the assessment of probabilities in particular factual contexts— not readily, or even usefully reduced to a neat set of legal rules.” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 232 (1983). “Neither certainty nor a preponderance of the evidence is required.” United States v. Kelley, 482 F.3d 1047, 1050 (9th Cir. 2007). “Probable cause is not a high bar.” District of Columbia v. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577, 586 (2018) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). It is well-settled that a “fair and reliable determination of probable cause [is] a condition for any significant pretrial restraint of liberty.” Baker, 443 U.S. at 142. Thus, the government must rely on “reasonably trustworthy information sufficient to warrant a prudent person in believing” that an individual has committed an offense. Rohde v. City of Roseburg, 137 F.3d 1142, 1144 (9th Cir. 1998) (citation omitted). As is relevant here, the government may rely on a computer database to make a probable cause determination. Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 146–47 (2009). But when the government chooses “to enjoy the substantial advantages this technology confers,” the government 54 GONZALEZ V. USICE accepts “the burden of corresponding constitutional responsibilities.” Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 17–18 (1995) (O’Connor, J., concurring). And when the government relies solely on a computer database to make a probable cause determination, the legality of a resulting seizure or detention “hinges entirely on the reliability of [the] computer database[.]” United States v. Esquivel-Rios, 725 F.3d 1231, 1238 (10th Cir. 2013) (Gorsuch, J.); see also Morales v. Chadbourne, 235 F. Supp. 3d 388, 401 (D.R.I. 2017) (“A database search is only successful and its results are only reliable under a probable cause analysis if the information contained in the database is complete and if the search is thorough and based on available identifiers.”), appeal dismissed, No. 17-1300, 2017 WL 4574440 (1st Cir. May 24, 2017). Although probable cause is “incapable of precise definition or quantification into percentages because it deals with probabilities and depends on the totality of the circumstances,” Pringle, 540 U.S. at 371, the reliability of a computer database may lend itself to such an inquiry. See Esquivel-Rios, 725 F.3d at 1237–38. A database may also have shortcomings by virtue of the data that it contains. For example, a database may lack complete records. See Orhorhaghe v. I.N.S., 38 F.3d 488, 498–99 (9th Cir. 1994) (concluding that reliance on the Immigrant Index System database, which did not contain entry records predating 1983 and excluded “millions of people who are legitimately present in the United States,” did not provide sufficient cause for immigration agents to seize individual for suspected illegal presence). Similarly, a database may have static or outdated information. See Smith v. City of Oklahoma City, 696 F.2d 784, 787 (10th Cir. 1983) (finding no probable cause for an arrest warrant when “a computer check” used pursuant to city procedure to issue the parking tickets GONZALEZ V. USICE 55 underlying the warrant established only who owned vehicle on the date of check, but not who owned the vehicle on earlier or later dates). But howsoever a database is unreliable, the ultimate inquiry is whether the database provides officers with “reasonably trustworthy information” for determining probable cause. Rohde, 137 F.3d at 1144 (citation omitted). With these principles in mind, we turn to the Database Injunction. B. The Errors Underlying the Database Injunction The claims of the Probable Cause Subclass concern the Government’s issuance of immigration detainers from the Central District. The Government must have probable cause to lodge an immigration detainer, i.e., before an individual is detained pursuant to the detainer. See Hernandez, 939 F.3d at 200; Morales v. Chadbourne, 793 F.3d 208, 211 (1st Cir. 2015); Cervantez v. Whitfield, 776 F.2d 556, 560 (5th Cir. 1985). Because only an individual who is not a U.S. citizen and who lacks lawful immigration status is removable from the United States, probable cause here hinges on the information about an individual’s citizenship and immigration status on which the government relies to issue a detainer. See Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 884; Orhorhaghe, 38 F.3d at 497; Tejeda-Mata, 626 F.2d at 725. Moreover, because the Database Claim challenges the Government’s practice of issuing immigration detainers based solely on searches of electronic databases, the probable cause determinations here hinge entirely on the reliability of the databases. See Esquivel-Rios, 725 F.3d at 1238. The district court concluded “that ICE violates the Fourth Amendment by relying on an unreliable set of databases to make probable cause determinations for its detainers.” Gonzalez, 416 F. Supp. 3d at 1018. We do not 56 GONZALEZ V. USICE recount all the underlying factual findings because it is unnecessary to do so. Instead, we focus on three interrelated, yet distinct errors that require reversal: (1) the district court’s incomplete set of reliability findings, (2) the district court’s legal error in concluding that any database is unreliable due to its intended purpose, and (3) the district court’s failure to address whether the system of databases on which ICE relies routinely fails to provide sufficiently trustworthy evidence of removability. 1. The Incomplete Database Reliability Findings Throughout the district court’s order are a number of sweeping, categorical conclusions about the databases on which ICE relies. See id. at 1011 (“All told, the collection of datapoints ICE gathers from the various databases does not provide affirmative indicia of removability to satisfy probable cause . . . because the aggregation of information ICE receives from the databases is largely erroneous and fails to capture certain complexities and nuances of immigration law.”); id. at 1019 (“[T]he set of databases ICE checks, and the information stored therein, contain serious errors.”). These categorical findings, however, suffer from a key shortcoming: the district court did not make reliability findings for all the databases on which ICE relies. Although trial occurred in May 2019, the district court anchored its analysis in the databases on which ICE relied as of December 2017 and identified sixteen databases on which ICE relied at that point. Id. at 1007–08 & n.12. Its unreliability findings, however concerned only six databases. Id. at 1008–11, 18–19 (examining the CIS, CLAIMS 3 and CLAIMS 4, ADIS, SEVIS, and TECS databases). Although the court identified them, the court failed to make any findings for PCQS (Person Centric Query GONZALEZ V. USICE 57 Search), EOIR, EID, SQ11, SQ94, ELIS 1 & 2, the California Birth Index, the CCD database, the RAPS (Refugee, Asylum and Parole System) database, or the NCIC and NLETS databases. 24 Id. Plaintiffs argue that the district court did not need to make reliability findings about all the databases on which ICE relies because they are not relevant to the Probable Cause Subclass for one reason or another. But Plaintiffs’ assertions in their briefing are not findings by the district court. Moreover, contrary to Plaintiffs’ arguments, the court expressly recognized that some of the databases for which it failed to make any determinations of reliability contain information that bears on probable cause determinations of removability for Probable Cause Subclass members. For example, the district court recognized that the NCIC and NLETS criminal databases “are relevant for removability purposes,” but failed to assess their reliability. Id. at 1008. The district court also recognized that the CCD database contains information about visas for which noncitizens have applied, id. at 1007 n.12, but the court apparently thought that the database was irrelevant because “it is not a broadreaching database that captures all U.S.-born citizens, id. at 1011 n.17. Notably, Plaintiffs offer no explanation for the district court’s failure to address the NCIC, NLETS, and CCD databases. In a case concerning the reliability of the databases on which ICE relies to make probable cause determinations, the district court could not make categorical findings of unreliability without actually addressing each database on 24 The district court apparently excluded the RAPS database because “ICE is not required to search” it. Gonzalez, 416 F. Supp. 3d at 1011. But trial evidence showed that ICE searched that database. 58 GONZALEZ V. USICE which ICE relies or explaining why an evaluation of a given database was unnecessary. Because the court failed to do so, the court erred in concluding that ICE’s practice of relying solely on searches of “the databases” to make probable cause determinations violates the Fourth Amendment. 2. The Database Purpose Error In evaluating the reliability of the databases on which ICE relies, the district court relied on Footnote 7 of our decision in Millender v. County of Los Angeles, 620 F.3d 1016, 1029 n.7 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc), rev’d and vacated on other grounds by Messerschmidt v. Millender, 565 U.S. 535 (2012), to reason that whether a database was intended to provide probable cause of removability determines whether that database is reliable for that purpose. See Gonzalez, 416 F. Supp. 3d at 1017–18. Applying that lens, the court concluded that “the databases ICE uses are unreliable because no single database used was intended to provide any indication of probable cause of removability.” Id. at 1019. The district court’s conclusion, however, stemmed from a fundamental misreading of Millender. In Millender, we rejected the dissent’s reliance on a statement in an affidavit used to support a search warrant, which referred to information contained in the “cal-gang database.” Compare Millender, 620 F.3d at 1029 n.7 (opinion of the court), with id. at 1036 n.1 (Callahan, J., dissenting). We explained that the magistrate judge could not infer a prior felony conviction from that reference because the advisory note for the database expressly “warn[ed] that the [] database ‘is not designed to provide users with information upon which official actions may be taken,’ and ‘cannot be used to provide probable cause for an arrest or be documented in an affidavit for a search warrant.’” Id. at 1029 n.7 (citation GONZALEZ V. USICE 59 omitted). We did not suggest that an express admonition not to use a database to make a probable cause determination meant that database purpose more generally determines the reliability of a database; indeed, we did not address the reliability of the database at all. Properly understood, our reasoning in Millender would support the exclusion of a database from the probable cause calculus for evaluating the merits of the Database Claim if a database on which ICE relies warns against reliance on it to make probable cause determinations of removability specifically or, more generally, for civil immigration purposes. But the district court made no such findings. Because we cannot extricate the court’s erroneous reading of Millender from its conclusion that the databases on which ICE relies are unreliable, we conclude that the district court committed legal error.