WEST VIRGINIA — A federal judge in West Virginia sharply criticized the Trump administration after government lawyers alleged that an immigrant seeking release from custody had a marijuana possession charge from 2009—even though the person identified in the record would have been a four-year-old child at the time.
Government lawyers submitted a document from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to “prove” the immigrant had a criminal history, using the claim to support their argument that he should be removed from the country.
The government lawyers ignored multiple discrepancies on the official document, “despite the differences in birthdate, birthplace, parents’ names, and immigration status,” District Judge Irene Berger noted in her order to release him Tuesday.
She went on to say that “this sloppiness further validates the Court’s concerns about the procedures utilized by the Respondents depriving people present in the United States of their liberty.”
The case is one example of the types of mistakes Department of Justice lawyers and Homeland Security officials are making as they struggle to keep up with a surge of court orders following thousands of arrests under Trump’s newly imposed immigration reforms, according to The Independent.
Compared with the end of February 2021, when about 14,000 people were detained by ICE, the number under the Trump administration has jumped to between 40,500 and 70,805 since the start of Trump’s second term.
In the past few weeks alone, two government attorneys have been held in civil contempt by judges for failing to follow orders in immigration cases.
Minnesota District Judge Laura M. Provinzin was one of the judges who held a prosecutor in civil contempt for “flagrant disobedience of court orders.”
She ordered U.S. Attorney Matthew Ishihara to pay a fee of $500 for every day the government waited to return a man’s identification documents to him after his release.
The man eventually received his documents, and the contempt order was purged shortly afterward.
The other contempt ruling was issued by a judge appointed by Trump himself.
Judge Eric C. Tostrud of Minnesota found the administration in civil contempt for transferring an ICE detainee to Texas in direct violation of his order and releasing him without any of his personal belongings.
The judge then ordered the administration to give the ICE detainee a full refund of $568 for the cost of a plane ticket back home.
The new ICE enforcement push has attempted to arrest and deport thousands of people from the United States and, in doing so, many are not given a chance to fight their cases and are instead detained in ICE facilities.
These facilities are known to exceed capacity limits and fail to follow proper health protocols.
All of this has ultimately led to a surge in new habeas corpus petitions appearing weekly on court dockets, with detainees challenging the constitutionality of their arrests and detention.
Due to the high number of new petitions, many government attorneys have become overwhelmed, and some have even quit because of the pressure associated with the cases.
In New Jersey, government lawyers reportedly admitted to violating about 50 court orders stemming from more than 500 new cases.
“What do you want me to do? The system sucks. This job sucks,” said Julie Le, a lawyer for ICE.
She was removed from the detail shortly after her outburst.
During the same month as that incident, Minnesota’s chief federal judge criticized the administration after it became known that ICE had violated nearly 100 court orders during a surge of officers into the state.
Officials at the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security have responded by labeling judges “activists” and “rogue.”
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