Even Trump’s Own Appointees Are Ruling Against Ice’s Mass Detention Strategy

For six months, dozens of judges appointed by Donald Trump have rebuffed — and sometimes pointedly rebuked — his administration’s effort to lock up thousands of immigrants under a novel reinterpretation of decades-old deportation laws.

This mass detention strategy, implemented by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has met an overwhelming rejection by federal judges appointed by every president since Ronald Reagan.

A POLITICO review finds that 373 have rejected the administration’s effort to require detention — without the possibility of bond — for anyone who crossed illegally into the United States, even if they’ve lived in the country for decades without incident. That contrasts with just 28 judges who have sided with the administration’s view.

Even judges Trump appointed are largely against him: 44 of them have ruled against the administration in mass-detention cases. Twenty Trump-appointed judges have signed off on the policy.

The divide underscores the limits of a president’s ability to control the jurists he puts on the bench. These judges, nearly all appointed during Trump’s first term, have likely contributed to his frustration over the recommendations he received from groups like the Federalist Society and judicial power player Leonard Leo.

They include Judges Stephanie Haines of Pennsylvania, John Holcomb of California and Fernando Rodriguez, Jr. of Texas, each of whom also rejected key prongs of Trump’s effort to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to carry out swift deportations without due process.

Also on the list are New York-based Eric Komitee, who reinstated protections for young immigrants over the Trump administration’s objection; Eric Tostrud, who upheld the seizure of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s phone during a 2020 election investigation and recently raised questions about ICE’s handling of the Alex Pretti crime scene in Minnesota; and Alan Albright, a Texas-based judge who tossed the Trump administration’s legal bid to eject labor unions from federal agencies.

Though many of the judges who have bucked Trump’s mass detention strategy hail from blue states — where congressional procedures give home-state senators outsize sway over a president’s judicial picks — others come from deep red states and boast conservative credentials. The list includes judges from Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky and Florida.

In total, judges opposing the administration’s expanded detention strategy have rejected it in at least 3,500 cases, while those backing it have ruled in about 150 cases, according to POLITICO’s analysis.

Cases brought by immigrants detained under this mandatory detention push have flooded courts nationwide, crowding dockets and overwhelming even the administration’s ability to defend them. Last week, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the slim minority of district court judges, a ruling that could fuel a race to the Supreme Court.

On the shorter list of judges who have endorsed the administration’s approach to mass detention, it’s a much more uniform group: 20 of the 28 judges were appointed by Trump.

They include North Dakota’s Daniel Traynor, who was pulled into Minnesota to help handle a surge in cases there amid the administration’s crackdown in the Twin Cities, and Raag Singhal, a Florida-based judge who ruled against Trump’s bid to sue CNN over its use of the term “big lie.” Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee from Louisiana, initially rejected the administration’s view before changing course after the executive branch-run Board of Immigration Appeals, which oversees immigration courts nationwide, backed ICE’s approach last September.

Only one Biden-appointed judge, Jennifer Rearden, and two Obama-appointed judges — Cathy Bencivengo and Gregory Woods — have sided with the administration’s view.