US judge 'worried' about immigration courts not complying with rulings requiring bond hearings

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday said she was "very worried" after the top U.S. immigration judge told her colleagues they are not bound by a court ruling declaring the Trump administration cannot lawfully subject thousands of people to mandatory detention without an opportunity to seek release on bond.

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris in Boston made those remarks during a hearing in a class action lawsuit challenging the administration's detention policy, which she and hundreds of other federal judges throughout the country have declared unlawful.

The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, who say the guidance issued by Chief Immigration Judge Teresa Riley has resulted in immigration judges systematically denying bond hearings to detained migrants even after judges like Saris declared the practice unlawful.

They say bond hearings should be guaranteed after Saris and U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, California issued rulings declaring the policy unlawful in separate class action lawsuits brought on behalf of people who were living in the United States when they were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Yet in an email on Jan. 13, Riley told her colleagues they were not bound by Sykes' ruling.

Immigration judges like Riley are not part of the federal judiciary but are instead employees of the U.S. Department of Justice, which is under the direction of President Donald Trump's administration and is enforcing his hard-line immigration agenda.

Dan McFadden, an ACLU lawyer, said Riley's email "puts us in really uncharted territory, really at a precipice of a crisis in the rule of law, for the executive branch to refuse to recognize the validity of the declaration from an Article III court declaring what the law is."

Saris, who presides over a separate class action covering thousands of people arrested and detained in New England, said she is "very worried about it because I thought things were going so well."

At a hearing last week before the email was sent, ACLU had reported that bond hearings in the local immigration court were beginning again.

"It's sort of an act of, I don't know, defiance might be the word, or maybe she's getting pressure from her higher-ups in the Department of Justice," Saris said. "Maybe I shouldn't fault her individually, but I'm not quite sure what to do about this."

McFadden said that in response to Riley's guidance, the ACLU planned to pursue additional claims under the Administrative Procedure Act challenging a September decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals that adopted the administration's position on bond hearings.

Saris said that issue was "complex" and would not generate a swift ruling. Given the reality that people will in the interim be detained, Saris directed the ACLU to draft up a new notice to be distributed to the class members telling them how to come to court to seek release if they are denied bond.

The number of people held in immigration detention rose nearly 75% in 2025 during President Donald Trump's first year back in office, climbing from about 40,000 at the start of 2025 to 66,000 by the beginning of December, according to a report last week by the American Immigration Council.

Saris said she believed the Supreme Court would ultimately need to resolve the issue. Justice Department lawyer Katherine Shinners said the administration is "actively seeking appellate resolution" to the issue through numerous appeals nationally.

Sykes has separately scheduled a Thursday hearing to address Riley's guidance.

The case is Guerrero Orellana v. Moniz, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, No. 1:25-cv-12664.

For the class: Dan McFadden of the ACLU of Massachusetts

For the government: Katherine Shinners of the U.S. Department of Justice

Read more:

Top US immigration judge says bond hearings should be denied despite court rulings, documents show

Migrants in New England granted class-action status to challenge bond hearing denials

US launches new bid to keep migrants detained by denying hearings, memo shows