Federal judges across the United States, including several appointed by President Donald Trump, have now ruled against the administration's immigration detention policy more than 10,000 times, delivering a wave of rebukes that legal analysts say is unprecedented in modern immigration enforcement.
The rulings stem from a July 2025 directive issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that dramatically expanded mandatory detention for undocumented immigrants living inside the United States. Since then, district courts and appellate judges from New York to Texas have accused the administration of ignoring decades of legal precedent, violating court orders and, in some opinions, abandoning "human decency."
A Politico analysis published May 13 found that nearly 90% of federal rulings tied to the policy went against the Trump administration. The database tracked thousands of habeas corpus petitions filed after ICE began classifying nearly all undocumented immigrants arrested in the country's interior as "applicants for admission" under Section 235 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
That reinterpretation originated in an interim memo issued July 8, 2025, by ICE Director Todd Lyons. Under the policy, immigrants detained during traffic stops, workplace raids or immigration check-ins could be held without bond hearings while awaiting deportation proceedings.
For nearly three decades, administrations from both parties had largely applied that section of immigration law to individuals apprehended at or near the border. The Trump administration's reinterpretation widened the government's detention authority dramatically and fueled a sharp rise in the number of detainees held in federal custody.
By January 2026, ICE detention numbers had climbed to approximately 73,000 individuals, according to figures cited in the litigation. Advocacy groups and court filings stated that more than 50,000 detainees held by early February had no prior criminal record.
The judicial backlash escalated quickly.
In one of the most widely cited opinions, US District Judge Gary R. Brown, a Trump appointee serving in the Eastern District of New York, sharply criticized ICE's treatment of a 24-year-old theatrical lighting designer, Hesler Asaf Garcia Lanza, who had been mistakenly detained because agents believed he resembled another individual.
"He was handcuffed, shackled and detained in a facility designed to hold charged and convicted criminals," Brown wrote in March. "This isn't how things are supposed to work in America. Unquestionably, the laws of human decency condemn such villainy."
Brown added that while the executive branch "retains the right to set policy regarding immigration matters," it remains "forbidden from trampling our system of laws, a system which has safeguarded this nation for close to 250 years."
The administration's legal setbacks widened further in April when a unanimous panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the policy for New York, Connecticut and Vermont. Judge Joseph Bianco, another Trump appointee, warned that the administration's interpretation would "send a seismic shock through our immigration detention system and society."
Bianco wrote that the policy risked:
- "incarcerating millions"
- "separating families"
- "disrupting communities"
- worsening already overcrowded detention facilities
The judge also noted that the Second Circuit was joining "the overwhelming majority of federal judges across the Nation" in concluding that the administration's legal reading "defies their plain text."
Some of the most politically damaging rulings involved children.
In January, US District Judge Fred Biery in Texas ordered the release of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father from a detention facility in Dilley, Texas. The case drew national attention after photographs circulated showing the child wearing a blue bunny hat and carrying a Spider-Man backpack while surrounded by ICE officers.
Biery wrote that the case had "its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatising children."
The administration, however, has refused to retreat from the policy despite the mounting losses.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson stated that "the law clearly requires detention of aliens pending their removal from the United States" and said the administration remains "confident" its position will ultimately prevail in higher courts.
Justice Department spokesperson Natalie Baldassare argued that judges were "putting personal policy preferences ahead of proper interpretations of the law," while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described adverse rulings as the work of "activist judges."
Not every court has sided against the White House. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the policy in February in a 2-1 ruling written by Judge Edith Jones, a Reagan appointee. The Eighth Circuit also endorsed the administration's interpretation, creating a direct circuit split that legal scholars say almost guarantees Supreme Court review.
At the same time, federal courts have documented repeated failures by immigration officials to comply with judicial orders.
According to findings cited by the Immigration Policy Tracking Project, the administration violated more than 50 court orders in New Jersey immigration cases since December 2025. In Kumar v. Soto, a court-ordered review identified 52 violations across 547 cases, including transfers conducted against court instructions and at least one deportation that proceeded despite a judicial order blocking removal.
District Judge Michael E. Farbiarz wrote that the government's compliance "falls below the relevant standards."
