Law fight! Courts defying courts!nortex97 said:
Immigration judges are fed up with Article 3 judges making ridiculous politically-driven rulings…but this is one I'd predict the ACLU unfortunately will win on.Quote:
BOSTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - The top U.S. immigration judge has told her colleagues that they are not bound by a federal court ruling that declared the Trump administration cannot place thousands of people in mandatory detention without an opportunity to be released on bond.
That directive came in an email Chief Immigration Judge Teresa Riley sent her colleagues on Tuesday that the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts attached to a filing on Friday in Boston federal court in a lawsuit challenging the administration's policy of denying bond hearings.
The ACLU said the email was evidence that "the government has deliberately and systematically instructed every Immigration Judge in the country not to comply with final declaratory judgments."
The civil rights group said the statement directs judges to disregard court rulings by U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, California, and U.S. District Judge Patti Saris in Boston in separate class action lawsuits brought on behalf of people who were already living in the United States when they were detained. Both judges held that denying people bond hearings was unlawful.Quote:
But Sykes, whose case is a nationwide class action, in a ruling in December said that the administration's interpretation was contrary to law and that, as a result, the board's ruling was "no longer controlling."
Yet Riley in Tuesday's email told her colleagues that because Sykes did not issue an injunction, the board's decision "remains binding precedent on agency adjudicators."
Lawyers with the ACLU said that prior to that email, the immigration court in Massachusetts had begun holding bond hearings again, consistent with Saris' decision.
Yet the lawyers said they received multiple reports on Thursday that an immigration judge was denying detainee requests for bond hearings.Very bold and dramatic step by the chief immigration judge. This one's probably heading to SCOTUS, too. https://t.co/SHbfld4XpK
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) January 17, 2026
I dunno the immigration courts are their own domain. We'll see what happens.
The left cannot kill the Spirit of Charlie Kirk.