Politico reports:

Federal judges are increasingly exasperated by the Trump administration’s effort to lock up nearly everyone facing deportation proceedings — a draconian expansion of decades-old policies that hundreds of courts have rejected as illegal or unconstitutional.

More than 300 federal judges, including appointees of every president since Ronald Reagan, have now rebuffed the administration’s six-month-old effort to expand its so-called “mandatory detention” policy, according to a POLITICO analysis of court dockets from across the country. Those judges have ordered immigrants’ release or the opportunity for bond hearings in more than 1,600 cases.

And dozens more federal judges have ordered the administration to release immigrants yanked off the street without due process or held for prolonged periods even though no country has agreed to accept them.

The legal rejections are so frequent that one judge compared the Trump administration’s effort to Sisyphus rolling a rock uphill. Others have become so familiar with the cases that they’ve begun issuing terse, carbon-copy rulings to dispense with the deluge. Immigrant advocates say the administration’s win-loss record is beside the point; the goal appears to be making the process so onerous that many choose to give up rather than face weeks or months of detention.

Despite the overwhelming legal consensus, there has been no successful nationwide block on the policy. That’s partly because most of the cases are filed on an emergency basis by individuals in the hours after they’re arrested — with little time to assemble large groups that could mount a broad challenge.

In recent weeks, the judges’ conclusions have become increasingly urgent, describing shocking mistreatment and inhumanity as thousands of people — the majority not charged with any crime — are abruptly ripped from family members and locked up in squalid detention centers, even if they have lived in the country for decades. Many have been arrested while attending required immigration court proceedings or check-ins with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that they had attended for decades.

“This district has been flooded with petitions for relief with similar stories — families ripped apart, and people who pose no danger or risk of fleeing imprisoned with no end in sight, flown to far off detention centers for reasons that the government lawyers who appear in court themselves can’t explain,” U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian wrote in a Dec. 23 opinion. “And that doesn’t account for the countless people picked up off the streets who don’t have lawyers and who can’t effectively seek relief.”

“No one disputes that the government may, consistent with the law’s requirements, pursue the removal of people who are in this country unlawfully. But the way we treat others matters,” the New York-based Biden appointee continued.

Subramanian’s ruling is one of hundreds issued by judges since July 8, when ICE revised its policies to conclude that virtually anyone in the country unlawfully was subject to detention — without the possibility of release on bond — while awaiting deportation proceedings. That decision reversed 30 years of practice by federal immigration authorities, who prioritized detention only for people deemed to be dangerous or likely to flee.

In recent weeks, the legal challenges have surged, with more than 100 new lawsuits filed daily, a figure that has steadily increased. [Continue reading…]