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How ICE defies judges' orders to release detainees, step by step
Courts across the country have overwhelmingly rejected the Trump administration’s effort to round up thousands of immigrants and lock them up without a chance for bond — even if they have no criminal records and have lived in the United States for years.
But the Trump administration has slow-walked or outright defied judges’ orders demanding the release of people scooped up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at an increasingly rapid clip.
Sometimes, ICE has raced detainees across state lines in ways judges say are designed to thwart legal proceedings. Other times, they’re detaining people for days or weeks after judges have ordered them released. ICE officials have at times ignored other arms of the federal government trying to ensure compliance with court orders. And sometimes the administration has given judges bad or incomplete information.
A POLITICO review of hundreds of cases brought by ICE detainees across the country shows judges increasingly furious and exhausted by the Trump administration’s tactics.
“There has been an undeniable move by the Government in the past month to defy court orders or at least to stretch the legal process to the breaking point in an attempt to deny noncitizens their due process rights,” U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, a Clinton appointee from Minnesota, said in a recent order.
But the Trump administration has slow-walked or outright defied judges’ orders demanding the release of people scooped up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at an increasingly rapid clip.
Sometimes, ICE has raced detainees across state lines in ways judges say are designed to thwart legal proceedings. Other times, they’re detaining people for days or weeks after judges have ordered them released. ICE officials have at times ignored other arms of the federal government trying to ensure compliance with court orders. And sometimes the administration has given judges bad or incomplete information.
A POLITICO review of hundreds of cases brought by ICE detainees across the country shows judges increasingly furious and exhausted by the Trump administration’s tactics.
“There has been an undeniable move by the Government in the past month to defy court orders or at least to stretch the legal process to the breaking point in an attempt to deny noncitizens their due process rights,” U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, a Clinton appointee from Minnesota, said in a recent order.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/10/ice-immigration-detention-court-orders-00771727
I'm grateful that Kyle surfaced all these extraordinary opinions slamming the Trump administration for the illegal detention of immigrants. This one leaps out in part because the judge is warning us that abuses being inflicted on immigrants now are a preview of what could be unleashed on citizens.
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) 2026-02-10T16:30:37.150Z
