The Trump administration’s push for mass deportation has resulted in more than 18,000 challenges to the illegal detention of immigrants in federal courts, more than were filed under the previous three administrations combined, including President Donald Trump’s first term.
A ProPublica analysis of federal court filings found that so far this year, immigrants have filed an average of more than 200 such cases, known as habeas petitions, every day across the United States, with California and Texas accounting for about 40% of new cases. To monitor this historic increase, ProPublica is publishing a habeas case tracking tool.
“I don’t remember anything like this ever happening,” said Daniel Caudillo, a recently retired immigration judge and director of the Immigration Law Clinic at Texas Tech University School of Law.
More immigrants than ever are challenging detention
An analysis of habeas cases since 2009 shows that more immigrants have challenged their detention in the first 13 months of Trump’s second term than in the previous three administrations combined, and that number continues to rise.
Immigration-related habeas cases filed by month. Source: ProPublica Public Access to Electronic Court Records and Freedom Law Project analysis. Ruth Talbot and Prasik Lebara/ProPublica
The wave of habeas petitions comes in response to new administration policies aimed at increasing the number of deportations. These include policies that require the vast majority of immigrants who entered the country illegally to remain in detention while their immigration cases proceed.
Lawyers argue that these policies overturn decades of legal precedent that gave immigrants who have been in the country for years and pose no safety or flight risks the chance to remain in the community until an immigration judge determines whether they can legally remain in the country.
On Friday night, a three-judge panel of the conservative U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals split, siding with the administration in limiting bail hearings to immigrants who entered the country legally. Caudillo called the decision “devastating,” adding that as a result, most immigrants detained in states in the circuit, which includes Texas, will be subject to mandatory detention. Appeals of judges’ decisions in habeas corpus cases challenging immigration detention have been filed in nine of the 12 district appeals courts, and the issue could eventually reach the Supreme Court.
The vast majority of federal judges who have ruled on habeas petitions so far have sided with immigrants. More than 300 judges ruled against the administration’s new detention policy, with only 14 upholding it, according to a recent analysis by Politico. As a result, federal judges frequently order the government to either release immigrants from custody or apply for a bail hearing before an immigration judge to determine whether they are eligible for release while their immigration cases are pending.
White House and Homeland Security officials did not respond to a series of questions, but spokespeople said in a statement that the Trump administration is fully enforcing federal immigration law and that responsibility lies with federal judges.
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“President Trump and Secretary Noem are now enforcing the law and apprehending illegal aliens who have no right to be in our country, reversing Biden’s catch-and-release policy. We are applying the law as written,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin wrote.
The high number of cases has overwhelmed legal advocates and government lawyers.
In court filings, U.S. attorneys say the sheer volume of petitions is straining their offices and plead with judges to shift resources from other priorities. Attorneys and paralegals have been “continuing to work overtime,” despite the office’s civil division being at 50% capacity, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen said in a statement as the administration conducts a months-long immigration enforcement crackdown on cases in Minnesota.
According to ProPublica, the number of habeas petitions filed in the state jumped from more than a dozen in 2024 to more than 700 in the past two months alone, putting Minnesota in third place behind Texas and California. The burden was so great that a government prosecutor, in rare candor, told a federal judge, “The system sucks, and this job sucks.” Attorney Julie Lee was reportedly fired from the U.S. Attorney’s Office after a public outburst. (ProPublica was unable to reach Ms. Le for comment. The Justice Department confirmed that her detailed communications with the agency have ended.)
“If corrupt judges had decided cases according to the law and respected the government’s obligation to properly prepare cases, there would not have been an ‘overwhelming’ habeas case or concern for DHS to follow orders,” a Justice Department spokesperson wrote in response to questions from ProPublica.
“There are a lot of corrupt judges,” David Briones, chief judge of the Western District of Texas, said in response to the Justice Department’s statement. “Obviously, we feel we’re in the right. That’s all I can say.” The Western District of Texas leads the nation in habeas corpus cases, with more than 1,300 filed in the past three months, and Briones has generally ruled against the government in those cases, according to El Paso Matters. The Texas Tribune also reported on the rise in habeas cases in Texas.
Judges are growing frustrated and have publicly criticized the administration for not meeting deadlines or following court orders.
A federal judge in Texas recently ordered the release of a 5-year-old boy from Minnesota. The boy went viral after he was photographed wearing a blue bunny hat and carrying a Spider-Man backpack as immigration officials escorted him and his father to their car. In a blistering ruling, Judge Fred Biery of the Western District of Texas criticized the administration for detaining Liam Conejo Ramos. “This incident stems from the government’s haphazard and incompetent execution of pursuing daily deportation quotas despite the clear need to traumatize children,” he wrote.
The number of immigrants in detention has increased from about 40,000 when Trump took office to more than 70,000 this year. While the number of border crossers being detained has declined recently, the number of detained immigrants apprehended by federal immigration officials elsewhere in the country tripled during the first nine months of the Trump administration, a recent analysis by the Deportation Data Project found.
“It’s a very, very chaotic situation,” said Shirine Sibaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, a national advocacy group that represents detained immigrants and provides support to lawyers and community-based groups, among others.
“And because of the very traumatic ways in which people are arrested and detained, and because of the amount of money and resources that are being spent to detain people who would previously have been released on bail or who were not in custody in the first place as their cases progress, I think that chaos has permeated communities everywhere,” she said.
Dennis Gilman, co-director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin, who has argued habeas cases on behalf of immigrants for years, told ProPublica that he sees a positive side to the sudden increase in cases.
“People are starting to pay attention to how extensive and arbitrary and illogical the immigration detention system is.”
For this article, ProPublica used Public Access to Electronic Court Records and Freedom Law Project records to analyze federal habeas petitions filed by immigration detainees in district courts across the country. The data includes several cases that were refiled for a variety of reasons, including filing errors and deficiencies.
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