Judge Pushes Justice Department on Mandatory Immigrant Detention

A federal judge pressed a US Department of Justice lawyer to explain how or whether the Trump administration would continue its widespread mandatory detention of noncitizens if she formally vacates the Board of Immigration Appeals decision that she has already declared “no longer good law.”

Executive branch immigration judges are citing the board’s decision in Yajure Hurtado to continue denying bond hearings to noncitizens in immigration detention, at the instruction of the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s Chief Immigration Judge Teresa Riley—and contrary to US District Court Judge Sunshine Sykes’ final judgment in December declaring that everyone in a nationwide class of detained immigrants has the right to argue for their release.

Sykes said in a Friday hearing on a motion to enforce her judgment that she didn’t vacate Hurtado earlier “because the court expected, and was somewhat relying upon, the government to understand the concept of the Constitution and separation of powers.”

“It appears that the government does not understand, or continues to not understand that, by virtue of counsel’s arguments here today,” said Sykes, of the US District Court for the Central District of California.

The DOJ’s Malcolm McDermond said if Hurtado is vacated, immigration judges will “follow the law” and “BIA precedent,” and “exercise independent judgment.”

Sykes read aloud Riley’s January email instructing immigration judges that they didn’t have to follow Sykes’ declaratory judgment because it’s not an injunction.

“Explain to me the independent judgment of each immigration judge, when they’re being directed by the chief immigration judge as how they should interpret the law,” Sykes said.

The Trump administration has used a new legal theory of mandatory detention as part of its strategy to quickly deport noncitizens at a massive scale.

The administration in 2025 said under its reinterpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, nearly all noncitizens arrested in the interior of the US are subject to mandatory detention, without the opportunity to argue for their release during a bond hearing in immigration court. The BIA codified this reading in Yajure Hurtado.

‘Not Friendly Advice’

Sykes asked McDermond several times if the federal government was privileging the legal interpretation of an executive agency over that of an Article III court.

He didn’t deny it, saying “what we have here is a tension” over how to apply the law.

McDermond repeatedly referenced the US Supreme Court’s decision in Garland v. Aleman Gonzalez, which found that district court judges can’t grant broad class-wide injunctive relief in certain immigration matters. Those judges can’t restrain the way the executive branch operates in those matters even if that operation is unlawful, McDermond noted.

But that argument is a “sideshow,” said Matt Adams of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, because it deals only with injunctions—not declaratory judgments of the kind Sykes entered.

Sykes’ declaratory judgment is useful in a limited way, McDermond said, in that individual detainees are free to use it to support their habeas petitions.

“I understand this has put a strain on the court,” he said, nodding to the avalanche of such petitions that has stretched the resources of judges and attorneys around the country. “I understand this is a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, but that’s what Congress has prescribed here.”

“I entirely disagree,” Sykes said.

Adams said DOJ “cites no authority to support their “continued defiance.”

“A declaratory judgment is binding on the parties,” he said. “It is not friendly advice. And yet that is how they treat it. They treat it as if they are above the law, that they need not comply with a declaratory judgment, but they provide no legal authority for that position.”

Judges can’t initiate contempt proceedings as a sanction for noncompliance with declaratory judgments, which limits the range of actions Sykes can take.

She is considering requests from the plaintiffs to provide notice to class members that they’re entitled to bond hearings. It could come as instructions from immigration judges, language on detainees’ processing forms, or posts on DHS’ online detainee locator system.

Sykes said she would enter a ruling at a later date.

Habeas Petition Flood

Releasing noncitizens from custody improves the odds they’ll successfully fight their removal from the US. And the conditions in detention centers are often crowded and squalid, causing some detainees to give up and self-deport, immigration lawyers say.

More than 1,000 people have filed habeas petitions in district courts challenging the detentions, and federal judges are ruling their way in the vast majority of cases.

But immigration judges around the country have largely stopped conducting bond hearings since Riley’s January email, apart from those ordered in individual habeas corpus petitions.

Sykes in a Jan. 22 hearing said the administration’s continued denial of bond hearings presented “serious separation of powers concerns.”

A panel of US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit judges sided with the administration Feb. 6. Judge Edith Jones, a Reagan appointee, wrote for the majority, saying the interpretation aligns with the text of the law, despite the federal government not applying the detention statute accordingly for decades.

The Seventh Circuit, which in a prior decision was deeply skeptical of the administration’s stance, heard further arguments on the matter Feb. 3.

The case is Maldonado Bautista v. Noem, C.D. Cal., No. 5:25-cv-01873-SSS-BFM, 2/13/26.