WASHINGTON, Feb 14 - Federal judges across the country have issued thousands of decisions since October finding that the government is detaining immigrants unlawfully, according to a review of court records. Those rulings - numbering more than 4,400 - represent a significant judicial rebuke of the Trump administration's expansion of immigration detention, yet the policy remains in effect and many people continue to be held.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston of West Virginia, a George W. Bush appointee, captured the tone of several recent decisions when he ordered the release of a Venezuelan detainee and wrote that "It is appalling that the Government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it is clearly written."
The core legal dispute centers on the administration's departure from a nearly 30-year interpretation of federal law that allowed immigrants who already resided in the United States to be released on bond while pursuing immigration court proceedings. The administration has shifted toward broader mandatory detention, and the White House has defended its approach.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the administration is "working to lawfully deliver on President Trump’s mandate to enforce federal immigration law." Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin described the uptick in litigation as "no surprise," adding that it followed what she characterized as judicial resistance to the president's stated deportation priorities.
Detention numbers and recent rulings
Under the current administration, the population in ICE detention rose to about 68,000 this month, roughly a 75 percent increase from when the president took office last year. The expanded use of detention has produced a wave of habeas corpus filings by detained immigrants seeking immediate release.
Since the new administration began, more than 20,200 federal habeas lawsuits demanding release have been filed, the court record review shows. In at least 4,421 of those cases, more than 400 different federal judges have ruled since the beginning of October that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is holding people illegally as it implements its mass-deportation campaign. Other cases remain pending, have been dismissed because the detainee was released, or were transferred to another judicial district, which forces a refiling in many instances; the review could not determine how many cases were moved or re-filed.
The appellate courts are already weighing contested interpretations. A conservative U.S. appeals court in New Orleans recently sided with the administration, with U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones writing that "Just because prior administrations did not fully utilize the law to detain people does not mean they lacked the authority to do more." That decision reversed lower-court orders that had led to the release of two Mexican men. Their lawyer said both men remain free.
Human impact in local courts
Court dockets document the human scale of the litigation. An 18-year-old high school student from Venezuela, Joseph Thomas, was arrested during a traffic stop in Wisconsin in late December while riding with his father on a Walmart delivery route. Both men are asylum seekers who entered the United States in August 2023 and are authorized to work, their lawyer Carrie Peltier said. Peltier said they were stopped for "driving while brown."
Within a month, judges ordered the release of father and son. Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz, also a Bush appointee, found that Joseph had been detained illegally and ordered his immediate release, stating that Joseph was not subject to mandatory detention and noting "a lack of any evidence that ICE had a warrant when it detained Joseph while he was a passenger in his father’s car." U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud, a Trump appointee, ruled that Joseph's father Elias was eligible for a bond hearing, writing in his order that "This raises an issue of statutory interpretation that courts in this District have repeatedly considered and rejected, and it will be rejected here as well." Joseph is now taking classes online and is afraid to return to in-person school.
The same period saw habeas petitions filed on behalf of a string of other detainees: a five-year-old Ecuadorean boy detained in his driveway in Minnesota; a Ukrainian man with a valid temporary humanitarian status detained while traveling to work as a cable technician; a Salvadoran man who is married to a U.S. citizen and is the father of a 3-year-old autistic child who is a U.S. citizen; an Eritrean hospital worker with refugee status arrested after cooperating with agents in his apartment complex; and a Venezuelan man arrested after dropping his daughter at school. None of these individuals had criminal records, according to the filings.
Legal system strain and compliance issues
The surge of habeas filings has produced measurable strains on the Justice Department and immigration courts. The review of dockets identified more than 700 Justice Department attorneys representing the government in immigration cases, and found that five of those attorneys each appeared on the dockets of more than 1,000 habeas cases. This diversion of government attorneys has come at the cost of other work, with prosecutors who would typically handle criminal matters moved to respond to the heavy habeas docket.
Judges have also recorded instances in which the government failed to comply with court orders. In Minnesota, Chief Judge Schiltz said the government had violated 96 orders in 76 cases. U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen acknowledged in a filing that the cases have created an "enormous burden" for government attorneys.
In New York, U.S. District Judge Nusrat Choudhury, a Biden appointee, concluded that ICE violated two "clear and unambiguous orders" when it flew a detainee to New Mexico for detention while asserting he was in New Jersey and could be brought to a court hearing. A Justice Department spokesperson, Natalie Baldassarre, said the administration "is complying with court orders and fully enforcing federal immigration law," and criticized judges she described as "rogue" who, in her view, were mismanaging the caseload.
Barriers to habeas relief
Not all detained immigrants are able to secure habeas relief, even as courts issue orders on their behalf. Some detainees are unaware of their ability to file habeas petitions. Others cannot afford counsel; the records contain examples of detainees quoted prohibitive prices for legal filings. Judy Rall, the U.S. citizen wife of a Venezuelan detainee who has spent nearly a year at the Bluebonnet detention center in Texas, said she was quoted more than $5,000 to file a habeas petition and could not afford that amount. Her husband has no criminal record, although the government has alleged, without producing evidence in the filing, that he has ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Her lawyer later offered to represent the habeas case pro bono. Rall said, "Our home burnt down, and I had told them I needed him to come help. I assume that is the reason."
In places like New York, advocates have been waiting outside immigration court to connect detainees with lawyers who can file same-day habeas petitions and thereby block rapid transfers to detention centers in other states. On January 16, U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken issued an emergency ruling barring the government from moving an Ecuadorean man out of New York after he was detained at his court hearing. On January 30, U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter ordered that man's immediate release.
Scope and limits of the court record review
The analysis behind these findings assembled the dockets of every publicly filed federal court case over more than two decades using a legal research tool and combined those records with other court filings to present what the review describes as a comprehensive view of the scale of habeas litigation and judicial decisions addressing the administration's detention practices.
That compilation shows both the volume of litigation and the geographic spread of judges issuing rulings against the government, underscoring the national reach of the legal challenge to the expanded detention policy.
Outlook and ongoing proceedings
Appeals courts will continue to resolve conflicting interpretations of detention law in the coming weeks. While one appellate panel provided the administration a legal victory by emphasizing authority to detain more broadly, numerous district court judges have found the detentions unlawful and ordered releases.
The accumulation of habeas filings, the reassignment of Justice Department attorneys, the recorded violations of court orders, and the financial and informational barriers faced by detainees seeking relief have combined to create both a legal bottleneck and a human toll in local communities. The record shows that the dispute is active in courts nationwide and that outcomes vary dramatically depending on the jurisdiction, the presiding judge, and the ability of detainees to obtain counsel and prompt filings.
For detainees who have secured release orders, outcomes are immediate and life altering - enabling some to resume work or education - while for others, obstacles remain. The continued increase in detention numbers and the proliferation of judicial rulings finding the detentions unlawful mean the legal conflict is likely to remain a central feature of the immigration enforcement debate in the near term.