Judge Rebukes Trump Lawyers’ Defense of Migrant Detentions (1)

A Virginia federal judge accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement of illegally denying migrants the opportunity to challenge removal orders and said federal prosecutors are struggling to justify these actions.

“The government failed to follow its own regulations,” Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles of the Eastern District of Virginia said in court in Alexandria on Monday while ordering a migrant’s release. Giles said the man had his due process rights violated when his prior order of supervised release was revoked without explanation.

Giles, a Joe Biden appointee, also ordered the release of two additional migrants who filed habeas petitions challenging their detention. Giles cited similar grounds in the cases, telling prosecutors in the US attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia that the Trump administration is “coming up with post hoc arguments” for its rapid detention and moves to deport migrants.

“I don’t blame anyone at this table,” but “it’s getting ridiculous,” Giles told special assistant US attorney Christian Cooper, who was joined Monday by other prosecutors in the office.

The remarks are among the latest judicial rebukes of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement as it seeks to rapidly increase detentions and deportations. Judges have also faulted US attorneys’ offices for failing to comply with court orders in migrant detention cases that are overwhelming federal prosecutors throughout the country.

Giles, who in 2025 ordered the release of a Georgetown scholar whose detainment by ICE garnered widespread attention, said migrants in each of the three cases she reviewed on Monday were denied opportunities for a hearing to challenge removal orders or to be interviewed by asylum officers to argue they have a reasonable fear of prosecution or torture in another country.

The ICE orders initiating the migrants’ removals were all also signed by junior ICE officers, even though federal regulations generally require these to be approved by field office directors or other specifically designated enforcement and removal officers, Giles said.

The hearings come less than a week after a federal judge in Minnesota held a special assistant US attorney in civil contempt over his handling of litigation challenging an immigrant’s continued detention. Judge Laura M. Provinzino of the US District Court for the District of Minnesota resolved the contempt order on Friday after the detained immigrant who was released without his identification documents had those documents returned.

Provinzino, however, demanded that the US attorney’s office stop arguing they don’t have enough resources to comply with court orders as the short-staffed office faces a wave of migrant habeas petitions.

US attorneys’ offices have reported widespread issues in recent months keeping up with the migrant detention cases, with one government lawyer in Minnesota saying in a hearing earlier this month, “The system sucks, this job sucks,” in response to the judge’s questions on situations where courts have found ICE violated court orders in migrants’ cases.

The Eastern District of Virginia currently has more than 200 active habeas cases, according to habeasdockets.org, a website that tracks cases.

A DHS spokesperson said in an email Monday that the administration “is more than prepared to handle the legal caseload necessary to deliver President Trump’s deportation agenda for the American people.”

“It should come as no surprise that more habeas petitions are being filed by illegal aliens—especially after many activist judges have attempted to thwart President Trump from fulfilling the American people’s mandate for mass deportations,” the spokesperson said, adding that the administration is “applying the law as written.”

A representative for the Eastern District of Virginia’s US attorney’s office declined to comment on Giles’ orders.

The first case is Cevallos Gonzalez v. Noem, E.D. Va., No. 1:25-cv-02358, 2/23/26.