WASHINGTON — Federal judges have ruled against Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention practices in roughly 90% of cases since the Trump administration expanded mandatory detention policies, according to a new report by POLITICO, documenting what legal observers describe as an extraordinary judicial rebuke of the administration’s immigration agenda.
A POLITICO article by Kyle Cheney reports that judges have rejected ICE detention practices in approximately 10,000 cases as federal courts grapple with the administration’s aggressive deportation campaign and the legality of mass detention policies targeting immigrants across major U.S. cities.
According to Cheney, the Trump administration’s track record in court stands at roughly 10,400 losses compared to about 1,200 victories, as judges repeatedly concluded that detentions carried out without meaningful opportunities for detainees to challenge their confinement were unlawful.
More than 10,000 times “judges have said those detentions, typically carried out with no opportunity for detainees to plead their case, were illegal,” Cheney wrote.
Cheney described the outcome as “a staggering rejection of a core piece of Trump’s immigration agenda.”
“Trump’s unprecedented detention policy, which is almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court, infuriated lower courts in ways no other modern issue has,” Cheney emphasized.
“It ruptured the relationship between the Justice Department and the judiciary by pitting the administration against itself and upending innumerable lives,” Cheney added.
The report noted that the impact of the detention policies extends beyond detainees themselves, affecting spouses and children, many of whom are U.S. citizens.
POLITICO is tracking tens of thousands of detention-related cases and has released a database documenting the rulings and outcomes.
The report documented courts’ overwhelmingly lopsided rulings against ICE, the agency’s alleged attempts to evade court orders and escalating tensions between the judiciary and the Trump administration.
“The trend is clear from every angle,” Cheney wrote, noting the administration had lost nearly 10,400 decided cases and prevailed in only about 1,200.
While some judges heard substantially more cases than others, more than 425 judges reportedly reached similar conclusions regarding the legality of the detention policies.
“Even a majority of Trump-appointed judges have sided against the administration,” Cheney reported.
“Trump administration officials shrug off the one-sided rebuke from the courts, attributing their losses to the left and their activist proxies on the judiciary and predicting that they will prevail at the Supreme Court,” Cheney wrote.
As ICE’s detention operations expanded over the past 10 months, the Trump-led Justice Department reportedly told judges in some cases that it could not defend certain ICE actions.
“Many judges hearing these cases have run out of words to express their frustration with what they see as a wreckage of lives and of laws,” Cheney said.
One judge reportedly wrote that the administration’s conduct was “beyond the reach of ordinary legal description” and constituted an “assault on the constitutional order.”
According to Cheney, the cases include “a nursing mother who was detained despite active refugee status and another mother separated from her one-year-old child and released from custody only when her son landed in the hospital.”
The cases also involve parents of U.S. military servicemembers, trafficking victims or witnesses and a 5-year-old child detained by ICE while returning home from school.
“Judges who have handled dozens of detention cases have described deepening frustration with ICE’s relentless detention drive and its defiance of court orders,” Cheney wrote.
U.S. District Judge Gary Brown, a Trump appointee in New York, wrote in one case involving a man whose lawful status was revoked after arrest by ICE, “This isn’t how things are supposed to work in America.”
Brown added, “Unquestionably, the laws of human decency condemn such villainy.”
Another judge reportedly invoked Greek mythology after ruling against the administration approximately 90 times, comparing the litigation to Heracles battling “a serpent whose heads regenerated twofold for each head that was lopped off.”
Cheney emphasized that judges also expressed alarm over ICE enforcement tactics, including “arresting parents dropping off school kids, positioning agents in courthouses to make arrests after immigration hearings, and detaining people at ICE offices after routine check-ins.”
The report further stated that ICE detained people previously protected from enforcement through programs such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and later used warrants that judges found were issued retroactively to justify arrests.
“In rare but extreme cases, the Trump administration has acknowledged deporting people in violation of court orders,” Cheney reported.
The surge of litigation has reportedly strained both federal courts and the Justice Department, forcing officials to reassign inexperienced government attorneys to assist overwhelmed U.S. attorney offices.
According to Cheney, government attorneys sometimes found themselves unable to obtain responses from ICE officials when attempting to comply with court directives.
U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III, a George H.W. Bush appointee from Pennsylvania, wrote that “Despite […] courts resoundingly in favor of the ICE-detainee petitioners, ICE continues to act contrary to law, to spend taxpayer money needlessly, and to waste the scarce resources of the judiciary.”
Federal law requires detention of “applicants for admission” to the United States who are “seeking admission” into the country.
“Every previous administration has interpreted the provision to apply primarily to people who were apprehended at the border until last year,” Cheney wrote.
In a July 8, 2025, memo, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons declared that millions of immigrants living in the United States for years would now be treated as individuals “seeking admission” to the country.
Cheney noted that before Lyons’ memo, significantly fewer people were considered eligible for mandatory detention and detainees could seek release through bond hearings before immigration judges.
“However, the administration’s policy shift pushed millions of people into a framework that denies bond hearings from the outset,” Cheney continued.
“Courts were then flooded with lawsuits from individual detainees, seeking bond hearings or release based on their individual circumstances,” he added.
ICE has also allegedly attempted to circumvent court rulings by transferring detainees across state lines, requiring them to restart legal proceedings with new attorneys, or by providing hearings judges deemed inadequate.
“That gamesmanship creates even more litigation, and has been a major driver of courts’ mounting frustration with the administration,” Cheney emphasized.
“Though the policy shift on mandatory detentions has driven the nationwide surge in emergency lawsuits, it’s not the only category of cases that has led to judicial pushback,” Cheney wrote.
POLITICO’s database also includes thousands of cases in which judges concluded ICE violated its own procedures, denied detainees due process or detained people for excessively long periods without a realistic possibility of deportation.
Trump administration officials have defended the detention policies as a response to what they characterize as “catch-and-release” immigration practices during the Biden administration.
ICE officials also pointed to increased voluntary departures and declining border crossings as evidence the policies were succeeding.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson stated, “The law clearly requires detention of aliens pending their removal from the United States.”
Cheney reported that federal appellate courts remain divided on the legality of the detention policy, with the 5th and 8th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals siding with the administration while the 2nd, 6th and 11th Circuits ruled against it.
“The division among appeals courts points toward an ultimate resolution by the Supreme Court,” Cheney wrote.
“As the issue works its way up the ladder of the judicial system, lower-court judges will have less and less power over the outcome,” Cheney stated, though “the human experiences that make up these more than 10,000 cases have clearly affected any number of judges.”
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery wrote, “Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. […] And the rule of law be damned.”
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