Judge Orders DHS To Submit Internal Documents Over Concerns About ICE Detainees’ Due Process

Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration Monday to turn over data in response to claims that it corrupted bond hearings for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees.

While U.S. District Judge Clay Land described in his order these claims as a “conspiracy,” he said further legal proceedings will show whether the accusations are baseless or based in truth. The judge specifically requested documents describing policy or guidance on bond decisions from Jan. 1 to March 1 to compare them with those that existed during 2024 under the Biden administration.

Lawyers for illegal immigrant detainees in the case alleged the executive branch turned the entire bond process into a “sham,” the judge stated.

Land summarized the lawyer’s evidence as a perception that bonds are being denied more frequently, some immigration judges aren’t fully studying the record and appropriate factors before denying bond, and several immigration judges have been fired, which created a fear of retaliation by the executive branch.

“The Court finds this evidence insufficient to support the inference that a systemic failure of due process has occurred within the alien removal process,” Land wrote.

Land reasoned that some evidence exists of a dramatic decline in bond approvals recently. Furthermore, increasing immigration enforcement under Trump with a “stretch it to the limit approach” creates potential for a disregard of constitutional guardrails.

Thus far, the claims presented to the court consist “primarily of unsubstantiated hearsay and speculation flavored with a degree of hyperbolic advocacy,” Land wrote in his Monday order.

Accusations of biased and unconstitutional bond hearings for ICE detainees stemmed from several illegal immigrants, all awaiting removal proceedings, held in the Stewart Detention Center in Stewart County, Georgia.

The ICE detainees argued that an immigration judge failed to provide them with adequate bond hearings. Ten similar cases were consolidated into one, with Odrice Alisma being the petitioner in the lead case.

Alisma’s lawyers, Rachel Sharma and Karen Weinstock, presented evidence of their claims to the court, which the judge described as “circumstantial.”

Sharma and Weinstock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But Alisma and her lawyers will be allowed to try to prove their claims in a “limited and targeted discovery,” the judge said. Evidence that may “theoretically” exist to support their accusations is controlled by the Trump administration.

The White House, Department of Homeland Security, and ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Land said he found the administration’s objections to further discovery “unpersuasive.” He added that it was advancing a “‘trust us’ without a right to verify attitude” that “demonstrates a misunderstanding of statutory and constitutional law.”

Although the executive branch’s authority with immigration law is broad, it is not unlimited, Land continued.

Both parties must propose a joint schedule for further proceedings, including due dates for discovery requests, depositions, and any supplemental briefing after all discovery has been completed, by March 24.

If both sides can’t agree on a schedule, they’re each ordered to submit their own proposal for scheduling by March 24.