Immigration Detention Cases Overwhelm US Courts as Habeas Petitions Continue to Surge

A surge in legal challenges filed by immigrants seeking release from detention centres is continuing to weigh heavily on US federal courts months after the initial spike, delaying civil cases, stretching judicial resources and forcing courts to hire additional staff, according to a report by Bloomberg Law.

The sharp increase in immigration habeas petitions, which began last year, caught many federal judges off guard. While some courts have since introduced measures to better manage the mounting caseload, judges say they are still struggling to cope with the thousands of time-sensitive matters crowding already burdened dockets.

“This has imposed on our court a workload unlike anything I’ve experienced in my 20 years as a judge,” said Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz of the US District Court for the District of Minnesota, where immigration enforcement intensified last year.

The pressure has prompted senior judges to raise concerns directly with John Roberts, who heads the judiciary’s policy-making body. Chief Judge Randy Crane of the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas said he and other judges from border states discussed the issue with Roberts, warning that the “overwhelming number of habeas petitions” was becoming unmanageable and was unlikely to ease until the US Supreme Court intervened.

The surge followed a shift in policy under the administration of Donald Trump, under which nearly all arrested immigrants began to be detained without bond hearings under a revised legal interpretation.

The effect on some districts has been dramatic. The Sacramento-based US District Court for the Eastern District of California, for example, recorded just one immigration habeas case in the whole of 2022. By contrast, nearly 3,900 such petitions were filed there in the first five months of 2026.

In Minnesota, where the administration launched Operation Metro Surge, more than 1,200 immigration habeas cases were filed in the first half of this year, compared with just 12 two years earlier.

The US District Court for the Middle District of Florida, which oversees several detention facilities including the Everglades site nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz”, received around 2,000 immigration habeas petitions by 15 May this year, up from just 152 in the previous year.

To cope with the growing burden, courts have retrained staff attorneys to specialise in immigration matters, relied on semi-retired judges and secured approval to hire more employees.

Even so, judges say the pressure is causing delays in civil litigation as courts prioritise urgent criminal and detention matters.

“It affects our ability to deliver timely justice,” said Chief Judge Marcia Morales Howard of Jacksonville, Florida.

Howard warned that if the current pace continues, the district’s Fort Myers division, which receives dozens of these cases daily, may eventually become unable to process civil matters at all.

Schiltz said he has worked every day since the enforcement operation began and that civil rights, commercial and contract disputes have borne the brunt of the delays.

“We always want to get things done as quickly as we can, but we simply don’t have any choice,” he said. “The caseload is beyond our capacity to resolve quickly.”

The strain is especially severe in courts already facing judicial shortages. Although Congress passed legislation in 2024 to expand the number of judges in undersized districts, then-President Joe Biden vetoed the measure.

Chief Judge Troy Nunley of the Sacramento federal court said the current influx only underlined how ill-equipped courts were to handle such a volume of cases.

Several judges admitted they were unprepared when the wave began.

“It was like being hit on the back of the head with a baseball bat,” Nunley said.

Some courts have since introduced dedicated immigration teams. Howard said her district had trained staff attorneys specifically for habeas matters and had been approved to recruit three additional attorneys. Chief Judge Cynthia Bashant of the Southern District of California said she was seeking to hire two more law clerks solely for immigration work.

But judges say uncertainty over the law itself is adding to the challenge. Federal appeals courts remain divided over the administration’s authority to detain certain immigrants without bond hearings, making eventual Supreme Court review increasingly likely.

Bashant said that when the influx began, judges and court staff had told her they were “drowning”. Although her court is now coping better, she said concerns remain that the caseload could rise even further.

“If too many people are detained and denied hearings, can we handle that? How do we handle that?” she said.

 

 For any enquiries or information, contact ask@tlr.ae or call us on +971 52 644 3004. Follow The Law Reporters on WhatsApp Channels.