WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice has violated court orders in New Jersey more than 50 times, according to a Politico report, as federal judges confront what they describe as growing noncompliance amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation expansion.
In an article by Politico, Kyle Cheney reports that the United States Department of Justice has violated court orders in New Jersey over 50 times. The majority of these cases involve immigration enforcement amid the Trump administration’s expanding efforts at mass deportation.
When President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, “he sought to empower immigration authorities to quickly remove migrants and announced a crackdown led by ICE,” according to NPR. NPR reports that the enactment of the Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025 increased ICE’s budget by $75 billion. This expansion in budget has now made ICE the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the country.
With the Big Beautiful Bill nearly tripling ICE’s budget, the agency has substantially more power to pursue its mass deportation agenda, according to NPR. “The Trump administration has set lofty goals for ICE, aiming to deport 1 million people each year,” as well as increase detention centers in the U.S. to hold more immigrants. NPR also mentions that the number of ICE officers has increased from 10,000 to 22,000. The influx of immigration cases has overloaded local courts and increased court orders significantly.
With the expansion of ICE enforcement, federal judges have been filing court orders to prevent misconduct within the department. According to Cheney, “The violations include a deportation to Peru that occurred in violation of a judge’s injunction, as well as three missed deadlines to release ICE detainees.” Associate Deputy Attorney General Jordan Fox of New Jersey also stated that these violations have spread over 547 immigration cases since early December. This high overload of cases has been straining the court’s prosecutors and federal judges, according to Fox.
Cheney also writes that these violations include “six missed deadlines to respond to court orders, 12 missed deadlines to provide bond hearings to ICE detainees, 17 out-of-state transfers after judges had issued no-transfer orders, three instances of imposing release conditions in violation of court prohibitions and 10 instances of failing to produce evidence demanded by courts.”
Fox announced that his office regrets all violations for which it is responsible and stated that the violations conducted by Homeland Security were also unintentional. His statement “stood in stark contrast with previous statements from the Justice Department and ICE that have blamed ‘rogue judges’ for the administration’s noncompliance.”
In response to an order by Federal Judge Michael Farbiarz, the DOJ produced several violations of these court orders. Cheney reports that “Farbiarz’s concerns mirror similar alarms raised by judges across the country who have described increasingly frequent violations of their edicts by administration officials carrying out the Trump administration’s mass deportation surge.” Minnesota, for example, identified 94 cases of violations of federal court orders in the month of January.
Farbiarz ordered the DOJ to “follow up by Feb. 25 with a detailed plan for how it intends to fix its recent burst of violations.” Because Fox attributed the violations to the overload of cases in federal courts, Farbiarz argued that it is important for the department to take the necessary steps to correct the problem.
Farbiarz stated that if the mass deportation push is what is causing the errors in the court orders, as mentioned, “‘it will be important for the Court to understand the across-the-board administrative steps the Respondents are taking to ensure 100% compliance with judicial orders.’”
Follow the Vanguard on Social Media – X, Instagram and Facebook. Subscribe the Vanguard News letters. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue. Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.
