A federal judge has accused the Trump administration of intimidating immigrants and wantonly violating the law as it deports millions of people living in the country illegally.
The White House has also “extended violence against its own citizens,” the judge said, citing the deaths of Renee Goode and Alex Pretty in Minnesota.
“The threat posed by the executive branch cannot be viewed in isolation,” U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, Calif., said in a scathing ruling issued late Wednesday.
Sykes said the government violated her December ruling, which found it illegally denied many detained immigrants the chance to be released. She ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to give them notice that they may be eligible for bail and then give them within an hour to use a phone to contact an attorney.
She also overturned a September immigration court ruling that the government had cited to continue its mandatory detention policy.
The White House referred comment Thursday to the Department of Homeland Security. The department said in a statement that the Supreme Court had “repeatedly overturned” lower court rulings on the issue of mandatory detention.
“ICE has the legal and factual backing and will comply with all court decisions until ultimately overturned by the highest court in the land,” the statement said.
Under past administrations, people with no criminal records could typically petition an immigration judge for a bail hearing, and their cases would go through immigration court unless they were stopped at the border. President Donald Trump’s White House reversed that approach.
With bail hearings cut off, thousands of immigrants have filed separate petitions in federal court seeking their release. Federal court records analyzed by The Associated Press show more than 20,000 habeas corpus cases have been filed since Trump took office.
Judges granted many of those petitions but later found that the government had violated orders to release people or provide them other relief.
A federal judge in Minnesota took the rare step Wednesday of holding a Trump administration lawyer in contempt of court for the government’s failure to comply with a judge’s order to return identity documents to immigrants who were released.
A federal judge in New Jersey this week ordered the government to explain what procedures are in place to ensure consistent and timely compliance with court orders in his district. U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said on Tuesday that Trump officials had failed to comply with court-mandated bail hearing deadlines in 12 of about 550 cases held in immigration court since Dec. 5.
“Judicial orders should never be violated,” he wrote.
Sykes, nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden, ruled in November and again in December that the mandatory detention policy violated an act of Congress. She extended her decision to immigrants across the country. However, the Republican administration continues to refuse to hold bail hearings.
Sykes said Wednesday that failing to provide immigrants with due process “hurts their families, their communities and the fabric of this country.”
She also slammed the notion that the government’s immigration crackdown was aimed at weeding out the worst criminals, saying most of those arrested did not fit that description.
“Americans are deeply concerned about the executive branch’s unlawful and wanton conduct,” she wrote. “In addition to terrorizing non-citizens, the administration has expanded violence against its own citizens, killing two U.S. citizens — Renee Goode and Alex Pretty in Minnesota.”
Matt Adams, an attorney for the plaintiffs in Sykes’ lawsuit, said he hopes her latest ruling will do away with mandatory detention.
“Of course, under normal circumstances, an immigration judge would re-grant a bail hearing,” he said.
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Associated Press writers Seda Attanasio in Seattle and Claire Garofalo in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report.
