Immigration court bond hearings plummet amid Trump detention policy, analysis finds
By Nate Raymond
March 23 (Reuters) - U.S. immigration judges held 70% fewer hearings last month to determine whether people detained as part of President Donald Trump's efforts to ramp up deportations should be released on bond, a data analysis released on Monday showed.
Federal data analyzed by the group Mobile Pathways showed that in February, immigration judges held only 1,337 bond hearings nationwide, down from 4,479 in January. Only 326 people were granted bond, compared to 1,086 a month prior, the data showed.
"Such a steep drop in bond hearings is unprecedented, unexpected, and deeply troubling," Bartlomiej Skorupa, Mobile Pathways' co-founder, said in a statement. "It suggests a systemic shift that cuts off access to justice for detained immigrants."
The Berkeley, California-based non-profit organization analyzes immigration court data and promotes access to justice for immigrants. Its analysis was based on data from the U.S. Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Bucking a long-standing interpretation of immigration law, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last year took the position that non-citizens already residing in the United States, and not only those who arrive at a port of entry at the border, qualify as "applicants for admission" to the United States and are subject to mandatory detention.
Hundreds of federal judges have rejected that interpretation of the law and ordered that detainees be granted bond hearings before immigration judges, who are not part of the judiciary but instead employees of the U.S. Department of Justice.
February's decline in bond hearings came the same month that the administration secured its first appellate court victory on the issue, when a 2-1 panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on February 6 upheld its interpretation of the law.
The 5th Circuit's ruling is only binding on judges in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. But those states house the most immigration detainees of any state nationwide, and the administration routinely flies newly arrested individuals to be held in detention centers in those states.
A month earlier, Chief Immigration Judge Teresa Riley in guidance to immigration judges nationwide had advised her colleagues that a court ruling in a nationwide class action rejecting the administration's interpretation of the law was not binding on them.
Riley had advised them that they should instead continue to follow a September decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals that adopted the administration's position.
Texas leads the nation in lawsuits by people challenging their immigration detention since January, with 7,136 filed as of March 20, according to Mobile Pathways.
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