A top U.S. attorney appointed by the Trump administration has warned the president’s immigration crackdown isn’t panning out quite like he hoped it would.
The Daily Beast reported in February that in the 12 months after Trump returned to the White House, monthly cases of migrants alleging they were illegally detained had skyrocketed 10,000 percent.
Arizona U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine, whom Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed to the post last year, has now told conservative outlet The Daily Wire that Justice Department officials in the border state are losing those cases at a devastating rate.
“It is definitely a new trend,” he said. “We’ve been losing almost all of these and the folks will be released.”
The explosion in petitions for release from unjust or unexplained detention, known as “habeas corpus” applications, accompanies the Trump administration’s nationwide deportation drive.
The president has framed that campaign as an effort to remove the “worst of the worst” migrant criminals from the country. Studies and reports have consistently shown that 75 percent of people arrested by immigration authorities over the past year have zero criminal background.
Despite those stats, the administration has effectively denied hearings for release on bond to anyone who has entered the country without legal permission at any point in time, which legal advocates violates the Fifth Amendments provision of the right to due process.
That move has in turn accounted for the soaring number of habeas petitions since Trump retook the White House.
“The percentage spike is impressive, but the most meaningful metric is the win-loss record,” one immigration attorney told the Beast last month. “So far, I think we are winning 95 percent of all cases, and judges are getting p--sed at the Justice Department for their bulls--t resistance.”
Courchaine told The Daily Wire the increase has put a “systemic burden” on his office, which is now having to reassign prosecutors from criminal cases to deal with the increased number of immigration claims.
“We’ve had to pull criminal prosecutors off of their caseloads and put them into civil [cases]. We’ve had to shift around criminal prosecutors’ workloads and investigations, so they could take this on,” he said. “I don’t think it’s gonna go anywhere particularly soon until the Supreme Court speaks on it.”
Asked for comment by the Daily Beast, a Justice Department spokesperson said: “After four years of de facto amnesty under the previous administration, the Trump Administration is complying with court orders and fully enforcing federal immigration law.”
“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 DHS following orders,” they added. “The level of illegal aliens currently detained is a direct result of this Administration’s strong border security policies to keep the American people safe.”
