CNN
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The Justice Department and federal courts are struggling to keep up with the exponential increase in federal court cases of immigrants in custody who are challenging their detentions, another result of the Trump Administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies across the country.
Challenges to immigration detention, known as petitions for you have a body, have surged in recent weeks, particularly in Minneapolis and Texas, according to attorneys and court records. It’s a sign of how quickly the system is being overwhelmed.
“There’s been a change. Everything has happened so quickly,” said Jacqueline Watson, an attorney in Austin, Texas, and a board member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
The surge in these cases highlights the strain on the justice system and the Trump Administration’s response to increased immigration arrests. The situation is particularly acute in Minnesota, where “Operation Metro Surge” has deployed over 3,000 border and immigration agents from the Department of Homeland Security to the Minneapolis and Saint Paul areas, and as detainees are transferred to facilities near the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I’ve seen people (in court representing the Department of Justice (DOJ)) I’ve never heard of before. Cases are simply sent to attorneys who can handle the workload within the district,” Watson said, describing how prosecutors in the Western District of Texas are now grappling with these detention challenges. “The volume further slows down the courts’ already scarce resources.”
Internal discussions within the Justice Department suggest a potential need to re-evaluate approaches at the Department of Homeland Security, which handles the detentions, as federal prosecutors struggle to respond to each case individually.
More than 400 detainees have filed petitions for you have a body in Minnesota federal court since January 1, seeking bail hearings or release. Last year, the state saw just over 125 such requests.
Federal courts along the border have experienced similar increases. In December, prosecutors in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi informed an appeals court of difficulties responding to immigration detention challenges.
“To respond to this wave of requests for you have a body, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has been forced to divert its already limited resources from other urgent and important priorities,” Justin Simmons, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, wrote to the Fifth Circuit, detailing the assignment of civil and criminal attorneys to these cases.
Under the Trump administration, Homeland Security officials are more likely to arrest and detain individuals without a criminal record. A policy change last summer also reduced the number of detainees eligible for bond hearings in immigration courts, which operate outside the federal court system but within the Justice Department.
Consequently, more detainees are filing emergency petitions with the federal district court where they are held. Judges then weigh arguments from the Department of Justice and the immigrant’s attorney to determine whether release or a bond hearing is warranted, with responses expected within days.
Last week, almost 180 new requests for you have corpus were submitted in the Western District, according to court records. The previous week saw 125 new requests, as announced in a press release by Simmons’ office.
Federal prosecutors’ offices facing significant increases in DHS-detained immigrants have requested additional attorneys, but a source familiar with Justice Department discussions indicated that simply adding lawyers may not be enough.
Justice Department spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment this week regarding the increase in immigration detention cases within the federal justice system.
The DOJ has requested additional lawyers from other Midwestern federal prosecutors’ offices to assist in Minnesota during the surge in immigrant arrests, CNN reported.
A federal judge on Monday criticized the Trump administration for being unprepared for the influx of new petitions for you have a body.
“The government decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision to handle the hundreds of petitions for you have a body and other lawsuits that would surely result,” wrote Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz.
“The scale we’re talking about is not something we’ve seen before. And it’s just the sheer number of enforcement actions that are being taken,” said My Khanh Ngo, an ACLU attorney handling dozens of you have a body cases.
On Monday, Schiltz noted the struggles of line prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis and Saint Paul to respond on behalf of the Justice Department.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office has struggled mightily to ensure that defendants comply with court orders despite the (Trump Administration’s) failure to provide them with adequate resources,” Schiltz wrote in a court order concerning a man from Ecuador who has lived in the United States for nearly 30 years.
The man had been detained and in ICE custody since early January, and Schiltz ruled he should receive a bond hearing or be released. Neither had occurred after three weeks.
Patrick Schiltz is the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota.
“The patience of the Court has come to an end,” Schiltz said.
