Federal judge accuses Trump administration of ‘terror’ against immigrants in scathing ruling

A federal judge has accused the Trump administration of terrorizing immigrants and recklessly violating the law in its efforts to deport millions of people living in the country illegally.

Citing the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota, the judge said that the White House had also “extended its violence on its own citizens.”

“The threats posed by the executive branch cannot be viewed in isolation,” U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, California said in a scathing decision issued late Wednesday.

Sykes said the administration had violated her December ruling that found it was illegally denying many detained immigrants a chance for release. She ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to provide them with notice that they may be eligible for bond and then give them access to a phone to call an attorney within an hour.

She also threw out a September ruling by an immigration court that the administration had cited for continuing its mandatory detention policy.

The White House referred comment Thursday to the Homeland Security department. The department said in a statement that the Supreme Court had “repeatedly overruled” lower courts on the issue of mandatory detention.

“ICE has the law and the facts on its side, and it adheres to all court decisions until it ultimately gets them shot down by the highest court in the land,” the statement said.

Under past administrations, people with no criminal record could generally request a bond hearing before an immigration judge while their cases wound through immigration court unless they were stopped at the border. President Donald Trump ’s White House reversed that practice.

With access to bond hearings cut off, immigrants by the thousands filed separate petitions in federal court seeking their release. More than 20,000 habeas corpus cases have been filed since Trump’s inauguration, according to federal court records analyzed by the AP.

Judges have granted many of those petitions, but then later found the administration was violating their orders to release people or provide them with other relief.

A federal judge in Minnesota took the rare step Wednesday of finding a Trump administration lawyer in contempt of court over the government’s failure to comply with an order to return identification documents to an immigrant the judge had ordered released.

A federal judge in New Jersey this week ordered the administration to explain what procedures are in place to ensure court orders in his district are followed consistently and on time. U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said Tuesday that Trump officials failed to meet court ordered deadlines for bond hearings in immigration court in 12 of roughly 550 cases since December 5.

“Judicial orders should never be violated,” he wrote.

Sykes, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, ruled in November and again in December that the mandatory detention policy violated an act of Congress. She extended her decision to immigrants nationwide. The Republican administration, however, continued denying bond hearings.

Sykes said Wednesday failing to provide immigrants with due process “harms their families, communities, and the fabric of this very nation.”

She also slammed the claim that the administration’s immigration crackdown was removing the worst criminals, saying most of the people arrested did not fit that description.

“Americans have expressed deep concerns over unlawful, wanton acts by the executive branch,” she wrote. “Beyond its terror against noncitizens, the executive branch has extended its violence on its own citizens, killing two American citizens— Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.”

Matt Adams, an attorney for plaintiffs in the lawsuit before Sykes, said he was hopeful her latest ruling would do away with mandatory detention.

“Certainly in the normal course of things, the immigration judges would return to granting bond hearings,” he said.

Associated Press writers Cedar Attanasio in Seattle and Claire Galofaro in Louisville, Kentucky contributed to this report.