Immigrants Have Filed More Than 18,000 Cases Challenging Their Detention as Illegal, a Historic High

Details

Since January 2025, immigrants have filed more than 18,000 habeas corpus petitions in federal court claiming their detention is illegal—more than were filed under the last three administrations combined, including Trump's first term. The ProPublica habeas tracker, published February 10, 2026, documents this historic surge in detail, with state-by-state and district-by-district breakdowns of filings. As of early February, immigrants were filing more than 200 of these cases daily.

What Changed

The surge stems from a policy shift by the Trump administration. Under prior administrations of both parties, immigrants living in the United States who had no criminal record were typically released on bond while their cases moved through immigration court—a practice rooted in a nearly three-decade-old interpretation of federal law. In July 2025, ICE officials reversed course, mandating that most people who entered the country without authorization remain in detention indefinitely while their immigration cases proceed, regardless of how long they have lived in the country or whether they have any criminal history. Under the new interpretation, immigrants arrested inside the United States—including people who had lived in the country for years or decades—would be treated as if they had just been stopped at the border, meaning they could be held without a bond hearing.

The population of people in ICE detention reached approximately 68,000 in February 2026, up roughly 75% from when Trump took office. According to the American Immigration Council, the number of people with no criminal record held in ICE detention on any given day increased by 2,450% under the new policy.

The Policy Followed Internal Deliberations Over Suspending Habeas Corpus Itself

A New York Times investigation by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, published June 15, 2026 and based on secret internal memos and more than 1,000 interviews, revealed that the detention mandate emerged only after the White House seriously debated a far more radical step: unilaterally suspending the writ of habeas corpus for undocumented immigrants, so that detainees could not obtain hearings or court orders blocking their deportation.

According to the Times, Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff for policy driving the deportation campaign, pushed the idea most aggressively. The trigger was the Supreme Court's April 2025 ruling that migrants targeted for deportation under the Alien Enemies Act were entitled to challenge their removals in court through habeas petitions, which substantially slowed the administration's deportation drive. Miller argued that the Constitution permits suspension "in a time of invasion" and characterized illegal immigration as an invasion—a framing he maintained even after border crossings had fallen to multidecade lows. President Trump was interested, asking advisers about Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas rights during the Civil War, and Miller directed the Justice Department to study the issue.

The deliberations prompted alarm inside the West Wing. Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary and an arch-conservative lawyer who had helped develop the administration's presidential-immunity arguments, wrote a confidential memo to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles dated April 29, 2025, warning that habeas corpus "prevents, in effect, governmental actors from detaining, imprisoning or executing individuals arbitrarily," that courts have almost uniformly held only Congress can suspend it (and then only in cases of rebellion or invasion), and that even where Congress has suspended it, the Supreme Court has required alternative procedural safeguards. Scharf noted habeas has been formally suspended only four times in U.S. history, always during war or armed rebellion, and cited the Supreme Court's 2008 ruling that even Guantánamo detainees retained the right to file habeas petitions. White House counsel David Warrington also opposed the idea, and some White House figures privately called suspending habeas corpus "insane."

Parts of the debate were visible at the time. The day after Scharf's memo, at an April 30, 2025 cabinet meeting, Trump alluded to "one way that's been used by three very highly respected presidents" for going around the courts, adding, "we hope we don't have to go that route." In May 2025, Miller told reporters that "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion" and that suspension was "an option we are actively looking at," adding—in what the Times characterized as a warning to federal judges—"a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not." But the full extent of the internal deliberations, and the existence of the Scharf memos, was not known until the June 2026 reporting. (The memos also documented a parallel internal fight, in which Scharf argued against invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy the military domestically—a step Vice President JD Vance pushed for in January 2026 during protests in Minnesota but that the administration did not take.)

The administration never suspended habeas corpus. Instead, the Times reported, Trump "got some of what he wanted anyway, through a bureaucratic sleight of hand": the July 2025 ICE reinterpretation of detention law described above. "Even without overtly taking away a fundamental right that would affect millions of people," the Times wrote, "Mr. Miller's team had found a way to gum up the legal works for many migrants for months on end." The libertarian magazine Reason, in a June 17 analysis, emphasized that the administration "seriously considered unilaterally suspending the writ of habeas corpus." A White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, defended the deliberations, saying members of the administration "often have conversations about many different lawful options to implement the president's agenda — with the president always being the ultimate decider." The Times noted that the idea was "set aside but never fully abandoned by some inside the White House."

Courts Have Overwhelmingly Rejected the Policy

A Reuters investigation published February 14, 2026 found that more than 400 federal judges have ruled over 4,400 times since October that ICE is detaining people unlawfully. A separate POLITICO review identified 373 judges who have rejected the administration's mandatory detention approach, compared to just 28 who have sided with it—a ratio of more than 13 to 1. In total, judges opposing the policy have rejected it in at least 3,500 cases, while those backing it have ruled in roughly 150 cases.

The judicial opposition crosses ideological lines. According to POLITICO's analysis, 44 Trump-appointed judges have ruled against the administration's mass detention policy; only 20 Trump appointees have upheld it. Judges appointed by every president since Ronald Reagan have rejected the approach. Among those ruling against the administration was U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston of West Virginia, a George W. Bush appointee, who wrote in February that it was "appalling that the Government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it is clearly written."

On the other side, the judges endorsing the administration's approach are a more uniform group: 20 of the 28 were appointed by Trump.

The Administration Has Continued Despite Rulings

Despite the volume of adverse rulings, the administration has continued its detention practices. In a February 14 interview with the New York Review of Books, David Cole, former national legal director of the ACLU, said he has "practiced constitutional law for more than forty years" and has "never seen anything even close to the defiance and bad-faith obstruction of court orders this administration has shown." The June 2026 Times investigation reached a similar conclusion about the detention mandate specifically: "Many federal judges ruled against the new interpretation, but the administration frequently ignored them."

Reuters found that judges have documented cases where the government left people locked up even after courts ordered their release. In Minnesota, Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz found in a court order that the government had violated 96 orders in 76 cases. In New York, U.S. District Judge Nusrat Choudhury wrote that ICE violated two court orders by flying a man to New Mexico for detention while falsely claiming he was in New Jersey.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the increase in lawsuits was "no surprise" given that "many activist judges have attempted to thwart President Trump from fulfilling the American people's mandate for mass deportations." A DOJ spokesperson called judges who ruled against the policy "rogue judges" and said the administration was "complying with court orders and fully enforcing federal immigration law."

Who Is Being Detained

Reuters documented cases filed within a span of days in January on behalf of a five-year-old Ecuadorean boy detained in his Minnesota driveway; a Ukrainian man with valid humanitarian status detained on his way to work; a Salvadoran man married to a U.S. citizen and father of an autistic three-year-old; an Eritrean hospital worker with refugee status arrested after letting agents into his apartment complex; and a Venezuelan man arrested after dropping off his daughter at school. None had criminal records.

Joseph Thomas, an 18-year-old Venezuelan high school student, was arrested during a traffic stop in Wisconsin while riding with his father on a Walmart delivery route. Both are asylum seekers authorized to work. Judges ordered both released—a Bush appointee ruling that Joseph had been detained illegally, and a Trump appointee ruling his father was eligible for a bond hearing. Joseph now takes classes online, afraid to return to school.

Mistaken Deportation: The Case of Any Lucia Lopez Belloza

In a case illustrating the consequences of the enforcement surge, a federal judge ordered on February 13 that the Trump administration return Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old Babson College freshman, to the United States within two weeks. ICE detained her at Boston Logan Airport on November 20 as she awaited a flight home to Houston for Thanksgiving, and deported her to Honduras two days later—despite a court order signed November 21 barring her deportation while her case was pending. A federal prosecutor acknowledged in January that an ICE officer had made a "mistake": after Lopez was moved out of Massachusetts, an ICE employee failed to activate a system that would have alerted officers in other jurisdictions that her case was under judicial review.

Judge Richard Stearns wrote that "the government commendably admits that it did wrong" but has "confused the prerogatives of the executive with those of the judiciary." Secretary of State Marco Rubio declined to provide Lopez an expedited student visa, and the U.S. attorney's office said it would "respectfully decline" to return her. The judge's order, titled "Order on Civil Contempt," gave the government until February 27 to facilitate her return or face a formal contempt citation.

Strain on the Legal System

The ProPublica investigation found that the caseload has overwhelmed both legal advocates and government attorneys. Reuters identified more than 700 Justice Department attorneys representing the government in immigration cases, with five attorneys each appearing on the dockets of more than 1,000 habeas cases. U.S. attorneys have told judges in court filings that the volume is forcing them to shift resources away from criminal prosecutions.

In Minnesota, where habeas filings jumped from a dozen in all of 2024 to more than 700 in just two months, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen wrote in a filing that his attorneys and paralegals were "continuously working over time" while the office's civil division was at 50% capacity. A government attorney detailed to the office, Julie Le, told a federal judge that "the system sucks, this job sucks." She was subsequently let go.

Many detained immigrants cannot access the courts at all. Some are unaware they can file habeas petitions; others cannot afford lawyers. One woman told Reuters she was quoted upwards of $5,000 to file a habeas petition for her husband, a Venezuelan detainee with no criminal record who has been held for nearly a year.

The 5th Circuit Ruling

On February 7, the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed the administration a significant win, ruling in a 2-1 decision that the government could hold people whose cases are moving through the immigration system without offering bond. The ruling applies to Texas and Louisiana, where ICE operates some of its most populated detention centers. Appeals have been filed in nine of the 12 regional appeals courts, meaning the question could ultimately reach the Supreme Court.

Nationwide Injunction Against Courthouse Arrests (June 2026)

On June 23, 2026, U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California, a Biden appointee, blocked nationwide the administration's policy of arresting immigrants at immigration courthouses—a tactic that had driven a substantial share of the record habeas filings. Beginning in mid-2025, ICE had stationed agents at immigration courts across the country to arrest people, many with pending asylum claims, immediately after their hearings—often after DHS lawyers moved to dismiss their cases so they could be placed in expedited removal and detained without bond.

Ruling in the certified class action Pablo Sequen v. United States, Pitts struck down ICE's May 2025 policy permitting courthouse arrests based on "credible information," and separately vacated ICE's waiver of the 12-hour limit on detention in short-term holding facilities. He found the agency violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to provide reasoned decision-making, calling the policy "an irrational departure" from 2021 restrictions that had limited courthouse arrests to national-security threats or evidence-destruction risks, and writing that ICE showed "a complete lack of decision-making." One immigration judge reported "a dramatic decline in attendance at master calendar hearings" while the arrest policy was in force. Pitts had blocked the practice across Northern California in December 2025; the June ruling extended relief nationwide, finding the ICE directives "devoid of rational explanation."

The practical effect is that ICE cannot arrest class members at or around immigration court appearances, and detention protections—bond and parole consideration—were restored for those swept up under the policy. WBUR reported on June 25 that the ruling was set to upend ICE courthouse arrests in Massachusetts and halt detentions at the agency's Burlington field office. The ACLU of Northern California, which brought the case, called the decision "a crushing blow to Trump's mass deportation agenda." DHS criticized the ruling; the government has appealed Pitts's earlier preliminary injunction to the Ninth Circuit, where the appeal remains pending.

For More

ProPublica's habeas tracker provides regularly updated data on cases filed by state and federal district, with trend lines showing the trajectory of filings over time.