Judges across the country are growing increasingly frustrated with the Trump administration for violating or ignoring court decisions related to ICE’s efforts to detain immigrants indefinitely.
An analysis of hundreds of court documents and cases by Politico found multiple examples of judges getting angry at the administration’s flagrant noncompliance with rulings as it carries out Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts.
Many of the disputes stem from the administration’s repeated attempts to round up people suspected of living in the country illegally and keep them detained without the possibility of release on bond. Among the more devious tactics employed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are moving detainees from state to state to prevent them from filing lawsuits seeking release, keeping individuals locked up for weeks after a judge has ordered their release, or even dumping them hundreds of miles from home without their possessions.
“There has been an undeniable move by the Government in the past month to defy court orders or at least to stretch the legal process to the breaking point in an attempt to deny noncitizens their due process rights,” U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, a Bill Clinton appointee in Minnesota, said in a ruling in late January.
Allegations of ICE violating detainees’ civil rights have been particularly prevalent in Minnesota, where hundreds of cases have been filed by immigrants arrested under the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge.
Politico’s review identified numerous instances in which ICE and the Trump administration appeared to defy or ignore court rulings regarding detained migrants, with judges lashing out at the bad-faith tactics.
The most common violation involves ICE continuing to hold detainees for days or even weeks after judges have ordered their release, often forcing courts to threaten contempt sanctions.
“Detention without lawful authority is not just a technical defect; it is a constitutional injury that unfairly falls on the heads of those who have done nothing wrong to justify it,” U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell, a Joe Biden appointee in Minnesota, said during a hearing on Tuesday.
During the same hearing, Blackwell noted that judges are increasingly having to issue highly specific release instructions to ensure ICE fully complies with court orders.
“If we say, release the person immediately, then we learn that, having transported him to El Paso or New Mexico, you don’t bring him back,” Blackwell said. “We learn that somebody is put out on the street with just the clothes on their backs and has to figure out how to get back here when they should not have been arrested here in the first place, let alone flown halfway across the continent of North America.”
Blackwell added that judges now even feel compelled to specify that ICE must not release detainees in freezing temperatures or other conditions that could “endanger their health or safety.”
U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, another Minnesota-based Clinton appointee, similarly ordered this month that a released detainee not be “left outside in dangerous cold,” to stop ICE from otherwise doing so.
Elsewhere, judges have also condemned ICE for repeatedly transferring detainees between states to obstruct their ability to file legal challenges in the appropriate jurisdiction.
U.S. District Judge John Gerrard, a Barack Obama appointee in Nebraska who is helping the backlog in Minnesota, blasted the administration’s efforts “to frustrate judicial review by moving detainees around the country repeatedly.”
Frustration has not been limited to judges appointed by Democrats. U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III, a George H.W. Bush appointee in Pennsylvania, said the flood of lawsuits against ICE stems from the agency’s “illegal actions.”
“Despite hundreds of similar rulings in this and other courts resoundingly in favor of the ICE-detainee petitioners, ICE continues to act contrary to law, to spend taxpayer money needlessly, and to waste the scarce resources of the judiciary,” Bartle wrote last week.
In response to the report, a Department of Justice spokesperson told the Daily Beast: “If rogue judges followed the law in adjudicating cases and respected the Government’s obligation to properly prepare cases, there wouldn’t be an ‘overwhelming’ habeas caseload or concern over following orders.
“The only people who should feel ‘fatigued’ are the American people who’ve been plagued by the damage of unfettered illegal immigration we’ve been tasked with reversing.”
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin added, “No lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States. Additionally, it should come as no surprise that more habeas petitions are being filed by illegal aliens—especially after many activist judges have attempted to thwart President Trump from fulfilling the American people’s mandate for mass deportations.
“We are applying the law as written. If an immigration judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
