Federal judge accuses Trump administration of ‘intimidating’ immigration, overturning decision to detain more people
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A US judge has overturned a decision by a panel approving the Trump administration’s policy of subjecting people arrested during its immigration campaign to mandatory detention – accusing the administration of abusing immigrants and recklessly breaking the law.
In a ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, Calif., vacated the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision after finding that the Trump administration failed to comply with his previous order that invalidated the basic principle of denying inmates the opportunity to seek release on bond.
Sykes said the administration violated his December decision that found that many detained immigrants were denied the opportunity to be released.
He ordered the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to give inmates notice that they may be eligible for bond and give them access to a phone to call an attorney within an hour.
Shira Scheindlin, a former U.S. district court judge, says any time an officer shoots and injures someone, a federal investigation is needed. However, the FBI’s investigation into the ICE shooting of Renee Good was quickly closed, the people of Minnesota lost faith in the process, especially since the feds excluded any national or local investigation.
US immigration law mandates the mandatory detention of “applicants for admission,” while their cases are pending in immigration courts and states that they are not eligible for bond hearings.
Consistent with the longstanding interpretation of the law, DHS last year took the position that noncitizens already living in the United States are also eligible as applicants for admission.
The Board of Immigration Appeals, part of the US Department of Justice, issued a ruling in September that accepted that interpretation, leading immigration judges across the country to approve the arrests.
Sykes’ December decision declared the DHS policy illegal but stopped short of reversing the board’s decision.
But he said it is clear that relief is needed after Chief Transportation Judge Teresa Riley issued a directive instructing his colleagues not to be bound by Sykes’ decision and that they must continue to follow the board’s decision.
Those immigration judges are employed by the Department of Justice.
The courts are divided
The issue of mass incarceration has led to conflicting decisions at different levels of US courts. Earlier this month, a panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the administration’s actions were legal.
But statistics run by Politico show dozens of other federal judges, along with Sykes, have ruled against the Trump administration’s interpretation of the law.
Sykes, in Wednesday’s ruling, criticized DHS for repeatedly and inaccurately saying that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations were limited to targeting “the worst” non-citizen criminals.
“Perhaps that name simply reflects the harshness and immorality of the government,” Sykes wrote.
“The American people have expressed deep concern about the illegal and inappropriate actions of the executive branch,” he wrote. “Despite their fear of non-citizens, the executive branch has extended violence against its own citizens, killing two American citizens – Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.”
Jacob Frey spoke to US President Donald Trump directly at a press conference on Saturday afternoon following the shooting death of a man in Minneapolis by immigration police, and repeated his request that the Trump administration end its crackdown on immigrants in his city.
Sykes’ decision means the board’s decision can no longer be used by immigration judges to deny bond hearings, said Niels Frenzen, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law who represented the plaintiffs.
“We hope that DHS and the immigration courts will now comply with the court orders to hear the thousands of non-citizens who have been detained,” he said in a statement.
Matt Adams, the attorney for the plaintiffs in Sykes’ case, said he hopes his latest ruling will end mandatory detention.
“Certainly normally the immigration judges would go back to deciding the bond hearing,” he said.
The vice president of the United States visited ICE agents in Minneapolis on Thursday, and blamed the presence of a large organization in this city for the lack of cooperation of local officials. We speak with Minneapolis-based reporter Jason DeRusha about the reaction to JD Vance’s visit and the vice president’s take on ICE’s arrest of a five-year-old boy.
The White House relayed comments Thursday to DHS, saying in a statement that the US Supreme Court has “repeatedly overruled” lower courts on the issue of mandatory detention.
“ICE has the law and the facts on its side, and it follows every court decision until it is finally shot down by the highest court in the land,” he said.
The Justice Department, which oversees the board of immigration appeals, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
With access to bond hearings cut off, thousands of immigrants have filed separate petitions in federal court seeking release. More than 20,000 habeas corpus cases have been filed since Trump’s inauguration, according to federal court records reviewed by The Associated Press.
Judges granted many of those appeals, but later found that the administration was violating their orders to release people or provide them with other relief.
Sykes, appointed by former US president Joe Biden, ruled in November and again in December that the mandatory detention policy violates an act of Congress. His decision extended to immigrants throughout the country. Republican administrations, however, continued to deny the bond hearing.
Sykes said Wednesday that failing to provide immigrants with due process “harms their families, communities and the fabric of this nation.”
