US appeals court questions nationwide rulings rejecting Trump's immigration detention policy

By Nate Raymond

March 30 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Monday appeared skeptical that a judge in California had the authority to rule on a nationwide basis that the Trump administration cannot subject people arrested in its immigration crackdown to detention without a chance to be released on bond.

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at oral arguments appeared open to continuing to pause nationwide rulings the judge issued in class action litigation after a U.S. Department of Justice lawyer said the rulings were fueling "judicial chaos" in cases over the detention policy.

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 just people arriving at the border, qualify as "applicants for admission" subject to mandatory detention if accused of being in the United States illegally.

Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign told the judges that thousands of people had filed lawsuits throughout the country challenging the ability of President Donald Trump's administration to detain them without bond hearings before immigration judges, a question he said the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately likely decide.

Yet U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, California, wrongly decided to "preempt" hundreds of her colleagues hearing cases by individual detainees by declaring the administration's policy unlawful on a nationwide basis, Ensign said.

"This appeal arises from a flare-up of judicial immodesty," he said.

She wrongly expanded her December ruling in February, he added, by vacating a key decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals that had adopted the administration's legal position, after the chief immigration judge told her colleagues the BIA's ruling, and not Sykes' decision, was what bound them.

Senior U.S. Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, appeared to agree on that point, saying given that by then Sykes' December ruling was on appeal and no longer before her to alter, "it would seem to me that we have a jurisdictional deficiency here."

Matt Adams, a lawyer for the non-citizens in the class action lawsuit at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, disagreed, saying Sykes had not altered the ruling on appeal but merely adopted a remedy to enforce it after the administration failed to abide by her declaration of what immigration law required.

"The defendants essentially argue that they can insulate their own executive agency policies by issuing it through a board decision," he said, referring to the BIA's ruling.

U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel Bress, a Trump appointee, said the case raised "broader questions about the scope of habeas jurisdiction." A district court hearing a habeas case challenging someone's detention only has authority to grant relief to people within that judge's district, he noted.

McKeown and Bress heard the case alongside Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Carlos Bea, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush.

The 9th Circuit panel earlier this month issued an administrative order temporarily pausing Sykes' declaratory judgment to the extent it extended beyond the Central District of California and halting her order vacating the BIA's decision while it considered the administration's stay request.

Ensign said Sykes' decisions should remain on hold given that the 5th and 8th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals in recent weeks upheld the administration's policy, in rulings that reached conclusions contradicting Sykes' holding.

"I suspect this court wouldn't appreciate district courts in other circuits attempting to preempt its authority over district courts within the 9th Circuit," Ensign said.

The case is Bautista v. United States Department of Homeland Security, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 26-1044.

For the plaintiffs: Matt Adams of Northwest Immigrant Rights Project

For the United States: Drew Ensign of the U.S. Department of Justice