Red Notices in Immigration Court: ICE Directive

By Sandra Grossman, Partner and Niki Kiani*, Law Clerk

Introduction

ICE Directive 15006.1, effective September 30, 2023, outlines how ICE officials should evaluate INTERPOL Red Notices and Wanted Person Diffusions in immigration enforcement decisions. The Directive recognizes that these notices and diffusions are not, on their own, reliable evidence of criminality or a sufficient basis for immigration enforcement. In fact, in many cases, Red Notices or diffusions are exploited by authoritarian governments, and some democratic countries, to pursue political dissidents, whistleblowers, journalists, and others, long after they have fled their home countries. The Directive acknowledges that such notices may result from political corruption, fabricated allegations, or deficient criminal proceedings from the issuing country.

To address these concerns, Directive 15006.1 requires threshold criteria to be met before ICE personnel should rely on a notice or diffusion. Despite these long-awaited criteria, it does not appear that ICE is implementing the Directive in any meaningful way. This post will examine how practitioners can continue to use the Directive to challenge DHS and EOIR reliance on INTERPOL notices.

How Should Directive 15006.1 Operate?

First, ICE must verify the validity of a notice or diffusion, conduct a preliminary review of it, and obtain supervisory approval before relying on it. After obtaining this approval and upon finding no indication of misuse or noncompliance, ICE must then request the underlying criminal documentation. Importantly, if ICE receives underlying documentation and intends to rely on a Red Notice in immigration proceedings, the Directive generally requires ICE to provide those materials to the noncitizen and afford a reasonable opportunity for the individual to respond or challenge its contents. However, the Directive includes a broad exception when advance disclosures of the underlying documentation would “jeopardize or otherwise negatively impact” ICE’s law enforcement responsibilities, leaving significant discretion to ICE as to when these protections actually apply.

Although the Directive contemplates disclosure of the underlying documentation to the individual in question, it does not expressly require ICE to provide the Red Notice or diffusion itself, which may limit the ability to fully evaluate the basis for the government’s reliance on the notice.

At the same time, the Directive provides an opportunity for practitioners to affirmatively demonstrate that a Red Notice or diffusion is inconsistent with INTERPOL’s rules. They may do this by presenting evidence of misuse by the issuing country, relevant country conditions, expert analysis, or even a pending or completed application before the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s files (CCF), which is the independent body responsible for reviewing complaints concerning INTERPOL’s processing of personal data and determining whether notices comply with INTERPOL’s governing rules. Such submissions can assist ICE in fulfilling their obligation to investigate potential misuse before relying on a Red Notice or diffusion. Moreover, the Directive instructs ICE not to characterize a Red Notice as an international arrest warrant, evidence of probable cause, or as an adjudication by INTERPOL regarding the legitimacy of the underlying criminal allegations. Instead, it recognizes that INTERPOL does not independently determine whether the criminal charges in a Red Notice are valid or justified.

Critically, the Directive recognizes that a Red Notice may, in certain circumstances, support an individual’s claim for protection. The Directive instructs ICE officers to evaluate whether a Red Notice may be inconsistent with INTERPOL’s rules. This may be accomplished by considering the issuing country’s conditions, U.S. government reports about the country, publicly available information relevant to the situation, or any other evidence indicating retaliation, harassment, or political persecution by the country.

It specifically acknowledges that some governments have misused INTERPOL mechanisms to target political dissidents, journalists, and human rights defenders, and that Red Notices may result from fabricated criminal charges, corruption, or even torture. Where there is material evidence that a Red Notice is noncompliant with INTERPOL’s rules or does not serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose, ICE personnel are instructed not to rely on the notice and to instead notify the relevant agencies. At one point, these provisions reflected a long-awaited institutional recognition that political misuse of INTERPOL is a recurring concern requiring careful investigation before a Red Notice is utilized to target non-citizens in the U.S.  Unfortunately, in practice, ICE is not applying the protective provisions mandated in the Directive.

Can Attorneys Rely on Directive 15006.1?

From a practitioner’s perspective, the Directive should be incorporated into a broader strategy rather than viewed as an independent remedy. Because the Directive is supposed to govern ICE’s internal handling of Red Notices and Wanted Person Diffusions, it can complement challenges before the CCF. A pending or successful CCF challenge may strengthen arguments that ICE should not rely on a particular Red Notice or diffusion, especially where the notice appears inconsistent with INTERPOL standards. Moreover, expert reports addressing INTERPOL procedures, foreign legal systems, and patterns of repression by the issuing country can be coupled with the Directive to further assist practitioners in demonstrating why a particular Red Notice or diffusion violates INTERPOL’s Constitution and fails to comply with its Rules on the Processing of Data.

The practical significance of Directive 15006.1 is illustrated by a recent decision from the Eastern District of New York. In Nazarenko v. Genalo, the court granted relief to a Russian national who was detained by ICE based, in part, on an INTERPOL Wanted Person Diffusion issued by Russia against the individual.  The petitioner here had an asylum application alleging that Russia had initiated politically motivated and retaliatory criminal proceedings against him.  Despite the Directive’s requirement that ICE investigate whether an individual may be the target of retaliation, ICE failed to conduct this required inquiry before relying on the diffusion to detain the petitioner. 

The court was critical of ICE’s reliance on the diffusion because the Directive prohibits ICE from relying exclusively on such diffusion to justify any enforcement actions.  This is significant because it demonstrates that Directive 15006.1 can have practical consequences beyond ICE’s internal policies. The court considered ICE’s failure to follow its own procedures when evaluating whether they had properly exercised their authority. This decision provides practitioners with a concrete example of how the Directive may be used in court.

As discussed in prior posts about political persecution, governments increasingly use criminal prosecutions and transnational law enforcement mechanisms to suppress political dissidents, activists, journalists, and any other perceived opponents who have fled their country. By instructing ICE officers to consider whether an individual is the target of retaliation or persecution, the Directive reinforces the argument that international criminal mechanisms can be weaponized as instruments of further repression.

This framework is consistent with asylum jurisprudence in the United States, recognizing that governments may disguise political persecution using criminal charges and judicial proceedings. Where the evidence demonstrates that criminal allegations were fabricated, selectively enforced, or initiated because of an applicant’s political opinion, activism, or other protected ground, the Red Notice itself may become corroborating evidence of the persecuting government’s continuing efforts to target the individual.

Limitations of Directive 15006.1

Despite these protections, the Directive has important limitations. While it provides valuable guidance acknowledging that Red Notices may be politically motivated and should not be treated as arrest warrants or conclusive proof of criminality, it apparently only remains an internal ICE policy, albeit one that is not applied, and does not create any enforceable rights for noncitizens. The Directive does not prohibit ICE from relying on a Red Notice or diffusion altogether. Instead, it establishes procedural requirements and encourages additional scrutiny before reliance. If ICE determines, in their own discretion, that those requirements have been satisfied, they may still rely on bogus notices or diffusions in immigration proceedings. Accordingly, immigration counsel is better served by utilizing the Directive as a tool for advocacy rather than an independent source of relief.

 *Law Clerk at GYH, Summer 2026. Niki Kiani is a rising third year law student at Tulane University School of Law. Niki is passionate about advancing the rights of immigrants and refugees and hopes to build a career in this field after law school. Her own family’s long journey to U.S. citizenship inspired her interest in immigration law and continues to shape her commitment to advocating for immigrants and their families navigating those same systems.

[1] See Matter of S-P-, 21 I. & N. Dec. 486, 493 (BIA 1996) (recognizing that criminal charges from the issuing country may serve as a pretext for political persecution and instructing adjudicators to evaluate the government’s true motive for issuing the charges through different factors); Funes-Torres v. INS, No. 99-70283, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 8501, at *5 (9th Cir. Apr. 27, 2000) (quoting Ramirez-Rivas v. INS, 899 F.2d 864, 867 (9th Cir. 1990) (affirming that when a government asserts its power against an individual without evidence of criminal activity, the most reasonable presumption is that the government’s actions are politically motivated).’re focusing on in school.