According to Reuters as cited by Al-Mayadeen that the sweeping wave of rulings amounts to a broad judicial rebuke of the administration’s intensified immigration crackdown. Despite the decisions, authorities have continued to jail individuals for extended periods, even in cases where courts determined the detentions violated federal law.
“It is appalling that the Government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it is clearly written,” US District Judge Thomas Johnston wrote last week while ordering the release of a Venezuelan detainee in West Virginia.
Most of the rulings center on the administration’s departure from a nearly three-decade-old interpretation of federal law that allowed immigrants already living in the US to seek release on bond while pursuing their cases in immigration court.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the administration is “working to lawfully deliver on President Trump’s mandate to enforce federal immigration law.”
Under Trump, the number of people held in detention by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has climbed to roughly 68,000 this month, an increase of about 75% compared to levels when he took office last year.
Immigrant detainees have filed more than 20,200 federal habeas corpus lawsuits seeking release since Trump’s return to office, Reuters found. In at least 4,421 of those cases, judges ruled that ICE was holding individuals illegally as part of the administration’s mass-deportation campaign. Other cases remain pending, were dismissed after detainees were released, or were transferred to different judicial districts, requiring new filings.
Meanwhile, a conservative federal appeals court in New Orleans recently handed the administration a legal victory. US Circuit Judge Edith Jones reversed lower court rulings that had led to the release of two Mexican men, writing that prior administrations’ limited use of detention authority “does not mean they lacked the authority to do more”.
MNA
