Appellate judges on Tuesday pressed attorneys hard on whether a Chicago federal judge had the power to extend the deadline of a consent decree and order the release of some 450 Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees.
The lower court judge doesn’t have the authority to give broad relief restraining the government’s ability to detain or remove people, Department of Justice attorney Benjamin Hayes argued.
But, Judge John Lee of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit noted, the case is “unique"—stemming from a consent decree that the government agreed to “with eyes wide open.”
“We have a consent ...