A federal judge has accused the White House of terrorizing immigrants and extending that violence towards its own citizens in a scathing condemnation of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes, a Biden appointee, made the comments in a decision issued late Wednesday, vacating a Board of Immigration Appeals ruling last year surrounding mandatory detention.
In her ruling, she criticized Trump’s immigration agencies, including the executive branch and the Homeland Security Department, while naming the U.S. citizens shot at the hands of federal agents.
“Americans have expressed deep concerns over unlawful, wanton acts by the executive branch,” the 52-year-old said. She went on to cite the administration’s “terror against noncitizens,” adding that “the executive branch has extended its violence on its own citizens, killing two American citizens— Renée Good and Alex Pretti—in Minnesota.”
Sykes also disagreed with the administration’s repeated claims that ICE raids targeted the “worst of the worst,” calling it an “inaccurate description of most of those affected by DHS and ICE’s operations.”
“Perhaps in utilizing this extreme language DHS seeks to justify the magnitude and scope of its operations against non-criminal noncitizens,” she continued. “Maybe that phrase merely mirrors the severity and ill-natured conduct by the Government.”
Sykes added that the administration had violated a previous ruling made in December after she determined that it had been illegally denying many immigrants a chance for release.
As a result, she ordered DHS to provide detained immigrants with notice that they may be eligible for bond in a language they understand, and to give them access to a phone to call an attorney within an hour.
The White House referred The Daily Beast to DHS when contacted for comment. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told the Daily Beast that the board’s decision endorsing the administration’s policy of mandatory detention vindicated the department and signaled the end of “Biden’s catch and release policies” that allowed “unvetted illegal aliens” into the U.S.
“President Trump and Secretary Noem are now enforcing this law as it was actually written to keep America safe.”
In her ruling, Sykes labeled administration officials as “shameless” for making such an argument.
The statement did not mention Sykes’ ruling directly, but hinted that the Supreme Court could side with the administration on the issue.
“Regarding decisions from federal courts about mandatory detention, judicial activists have been repeatedly overruled by the Supreme Court on these questions. ICE has the law and the facts on its side, and it adheres to all court decisions until it ultimately gets them shot down by the highest court in the land.”
An appeal in the case is likely, the government has indicated, according to the New York Times.
The mass detention of immigrants has become a focus of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, alongside increased ICE raids and mass deportations.
People caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown have included babies and young children, including Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old from Minnesota who quickly became the face of children in detention after he and his father were detained by ICE last month.
Detainee deaths have increased during Trump’s second term, quickly ballooning above the total number of deaths in detention recorded during the entirety of Joe Biden’s presidency in less than a year. In total, 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, making it the agency’s deadliest year since 2004.
Sykes’ ruling is the latest in a long line of rulings from federal judges seeking to reinforce the law against an administration that has shown little respect for it.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes stopped the administration’s attempt to revoke temporary protection status for 350,000 Haitians living in the U.S. The judge even used Secretary Kristi Noem’s own words against her in her judgment, writing that Noem “does not have the facts on her side” and “does not have the law on her side,” so, instead, “she pounds X.”
Last Thursday, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel found that ICE “violated noncitizen detainees’ constitutional rights” by blocking their access to lawyers.
A review by Politico published earlier this month found that since Trump returned to the White House, 373 judges have rejected the administration’s efforts to mandate detention, without the possibility of bond, for anyone who enters the country illegally, 44 of whom were Trump appointees. Just 28 judges have supported the administration’s view.
