These Judges Take Months to Decide If Immigrants Have Been Unlawfully Detained

When President Donald Trump returned to the White House, he pushed for a seismic shift in immigration enforcement resulting in mass detention. Immigrants with no criminal convictions, who under previous administrations would have been released on bond or not detained in the first place, would now be held while their immigration cases were pending.

In an effort to gain their freedom, tens of thousands of detainees have filed what are known as habeas petitions, asking federal judges to rule that they have been unlawfully held by the government. But their chances of a speedy ruling have varied dramatically. For some, freedom came within days. Others have waited months for a decision. Some were deported before a judge could rule. 

A ProPublica analysis of court records from the more than 70,000 habeas cases filed since January 2025 found that some judges take far longer than others to resolve cases as federal courts have adjusted unevenly to the unprecedented flood of filings.

The waits have been particularly long in parts of Mississippi and Louisiana, where federal judges have usually taken three months or more to decide whether a detainee should be released. Among the cases that have been resolved in Mississippi, half took 92 days or more — the longest of any state.

While new habeas petition filings have slowed somewhat in recent months, they remain far higher than before Trump began his second term. 

The massive caseload has inundated the already overwhelmed federal courts and overburdened judges who suddenly have had hundreds more cases on their already crowded dockets. District courts with staffing shortages have struggled to keep habeas cases moving.

The delays have left many detainees waiting in prisonlike facilities overseen by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that advocates say are substandard and unsafe, riddled with allegations about spoiled food, beatings and medical neglect, though federal officials dispute those claims. Some immigrants have been deported or accepted the government’s offer to leave the country rather than wait for a federal judge to rule on their freedom. 

“The amount of food they are being given is simply not enough, and people are left hungry,” said Liudmila Nafikov, whose husband has been detained in a large Mississippi facility for nearly two years and is awaiting a decision on his habeas case. “For three days, they have had no hot food or hot water.”

“I do not believe it is fair or humane to keep people in these conditions for such a long time, especially people who have committed no crime and people who are sick.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson acknowledged an Aug. 22 fire outside the Natchez, Mississippi, facility that affected “all hot water, kitchen services, and laundry operations,” adding, “No one was injured as a result of this incident and as of August 24, the facility is back in 100% operation with hot water and meals.” The spokesperson called claims of substandard conditions in federal detention facilities false, adding, “All detainees are provided with 3 meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, and toiletries.” 

Federal courts elsewhere have adjusted to the new reality and closed cases at a faster pace. In Texas, California and Florida, courts have handled thousands more habeas petitions and typically have made decisions in about a month and a half or less, according to ProPublica analysis. 

Courts in Minnesota, which experienced a surge in habeas petitions during an immigration enforcement push earlier this year, have reached decisions and closed cases even faster, with a median of about 12 days.

One commonality across districts: The vast majority of judges have ruled against the Trump administration in habeas cases, Politico found. Lawyers say that judges who are more receptive to habeas relief often issue decisions relatively quickly. 

“A Completely Unresponsive Black Hole” 

Habeas corpus, which means “you should have the body” in Latin, gives anyone in the United States a chance to challenge their detention in court. It is intended to be adjudicated quickly because a person’s liberty is at stake. 

“Delay is undesirable in all aspects of our justice system, but it is especially to be avoided in the sensitive context of habeas corpus,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit wrote in a 1988 decision.

The habeas statute directs judges to give the government three days to initially respond with justification for the detention but allows for that deadline to be extended up to 20 days. 

In practice, however, judges have broad discretion to set their own deadlines as they balance habeas petitions alongside other civil litigation and criminal trials that can tie up a court, lawyers told ProPublica. They have the power to order the parties to respond, grant extensions and determine the priority of cases before them.

The U.S. courts’ rules governing non-immigration habeas cases are less specific, saying only that judges must order the government to respond “within a fixed time.”

California-based immigration attorney Bonita Gutierrez has seen swift movement on her habeas cases in the state, leading to the release of her clients — some within days. 

But after the adult son of a longtime client was detained in August 2025 and sent to a detention center in Mississippi in November, she filed a habeas petition in that state in February. Both sides presented their arguments, and the case sat for about a month with no decision from the judge. Gutierrez received “radio silence” when she emailed the court deputy about it, she said.

“It’s just like your petition has gone to a black hole, a completely unresponsive black hole.” 

The man was deported in late April, rendering his habeas case moot after he spent eight months in ICE custody. The case was closed on May 1, according to electronic records reviewed by ProPublica.

Almost all cases in the Mississippi Southern District are assigned to one longtime judge, David C. Bramlette III, who was appointed by George H.W. Bush, and referred to two magistrate judges. Bramlette presides over a division within the court district where Adams County Correctional Center, one of the country’s largest ICE facilities, is located. 

The federal government has transferred many detainees to some of the nation’s largest detention facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi, complicating their legal representation and crowding the dockets in those states.

A total of 747 habeas cases have been assigned to Bramlette during the second Trump administration, as of Aug. 25. (Only 14 federal judges around the country have been assigned more.) A total of 539 of his cases, about 72%, remain active, according to electronic court records.

A spokesperson for Bramlette did not answer questions from ProPublica about case wait times, instead pointing to a page tracking his habeas caseload.

Lawyers who practice in Mississippi told ProPublica that many of their cases were languishing after the parties filed briefs and were waiting on a judge’s response. One case involved Aidar Nafikov, a Russian asylum seeker hoping to be reunited with his family. Nafikov filed his habeas petition in April after being detained in Adams County Correctional Center for over a year and a half. His case was argued before Bramlette in June of this year with no response.

Meanwhile, his health has deteriorated in detention, where he has suffered repeated bouts of strep throat and developed kidney problems, his wife, Liudmila, said.

“Getting medical help is very difficult because even if you complain, they don’t provide medical help right away,” she said.

A DHS spokesperson did not comment on Nafikov’s case but denied claims of medical neglect at ICE facilities, saying that it is “longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care” for anyone in ICE custody.

The harm caused by the delays spurred immigration attorneys and advocates in the state to send a letter to Chief Judge Sul Ozerden in March about the habeas bottleneck. The letter recommends distributing habeas cases among other judges in the district, noting that a district in Pennsylvania had recently done the same.

Other than adding an option to file habeas cases electronically, officials have not addressed the other suggestions in the letter, according to Korbin Felder, a Mississippi attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, one of the organizations that signed it. 

Ozerden did not respond to a request for comment.

More than 2,600 habeas cases have been filed in Louisiana, which has the second-largest immigrant detainee population after Texas. Over half of the resolved cases there have taken 89 days or more to be decided, according to ProPublica’s analysis.

Louisiana attorneys say that it’s hard to get a habeas case moving in the first place. Until recently in Louisiana’s Western District, petitioners had to formally deliver the lawsuit and summons to government defendants in person and through certified mail. Deadlines set by the judge for the government to respond would then begin after the U.S. attorney’s office received a suit. In other states, this process, carried out by the court, is faster.  

In addition, attorneys say judges in Louisiana have been giving the government generous deadlines to respond to a habeas petition — sometimes up to 60 days, treating the cases like ordinary civil litigation. By contrast, judges in Minnesota have ordered responses within three or four days.

Through a spokesperson for the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, the Western District of Louisiana declined to answer questions about the backlog.

Steep Learning Curve

ProPublica’s analysis also found that judges within the same district can take vastly different amounts of time to resolve habeas cases.

Seven judges in Oklahoma’s Western District have been assigned more than 150 habeas cases each during the second Trump administration. Two Trump-appointed judges, Charles Goodwin and Patrick R. Wyrick, have taken a median of 144 and 91 days, respectively, to resolve their cases. (Around 67% of Goodwin’s cases and 80% of Wyrick’s cases remain unresolved.) Meanwhile, their fellow Trump-appointed colleague Jodi W. Dishman has taken about 49 days to close her cases. (Only 26% of Dishman’s cases remain open.)

The court clerk of Oklahoma’s Western District declined to comment on behalf of the district and the judges.

Maggie Kopel of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance points out that rapid expansion of ICE facilities in states like Oklahoma has led to a steep learning curve for courts that did not have a history of dealing with habeas cases. In Oklahoma, cases have taken a median of 63 days to close.

“That’s not an excuse,” Kopel said. She notes that New Hampshire and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which have closed habeas petitions faster than Oklahoma, also did not have a history of detention centers. “Both those districts got up to speed extremely quickly.”

Unresolved legal questions also can cause uncertainty, leading to some of the delays in litigation. Recently, Louisiana judges David C. Joseph and Alexander Van Hook paused some of their habeas cases until the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decides whether the government can detain an immigrant without a bond hearing.

Out of the 130 completed cases Elissa Stiles, an Oklahoma immigration attorney, has filed, nearly 1 in 5 ended before her client received an answer. In four of those cases, the detainee was deported, and in 15 of them, they chose to return to their country. 

Most of her clients want to fight their cases, she said. 

“It’s rare that a client is immediately interested in voluntary departure because their entire lives are here,” said Stiles, adding that the conditions inside the detention centers are so dire that leaving the country becomes a better option. “If their cases had been adjudicated more quickly, they would not be taking voluntary departure.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that the department is “working rapidly and overtime to remove these aliens from detention centers to their final destination — home.” Detained immigrants can request “a free flight home and a $3,000 exit bonus,” the spokesperson said.

“Judicial Emergency” 

Many federal courts answered the upsurge in habeas cases by issuing standing orders shortening briefing schedules and assigning public defenders to certain detainees without lawyers. Some courts, like those in California, have temporarily assigned judges from other districts to help cut the backlog.

Courts in other states have established ways to standardize certain habeas proceedings.

In the Georgia Middle District, home to the Stewart Detention Center, the majority of the roughly 1,500 cases filed since Trump retook office have been assigned to Judge Clay D. Land and two magistrate judges. Land has the most habeas cases of any judge in the ProPublica analysis.

To address the backlog, Land directed magistrate judges that if a habeas petition falls under certain parameters, they can use preapproved language ordering the government to provide a bond hearing without the district judge’s approval.

“The volume of these petitions has created an administrative judicial emergency which requires the Court to consider novel solutions to assure that these cases are handled expeditiously,” Land wrote in the directive.

His district takes a median of 29 days to close a case and has cleared nearly 80% of its habeas docket.

The spokesperson for the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, which provides a range of support services and collects statistics about the federal judiciary, said the agency and the Judicial Conference do not “impose directives on judges to manage their dockets differently.” The spokesperson pointed to an “unprecedented number” of habeas petitions and a shortage of federal judges.

In 2025, the Judicial Conference recommended that Congress create 71 new judgeships to address increasing caseloads. The list, however, did not ask for any new judges in Mississippi, Louisiana or the Western District of Oklahoma, where habeas cases have been delayed the longest.

New district judgeships have not been authorized for more than two decades, the spokesperson said.

Congress did pass a bill in December 2024 that would have added 66 new federal judges, but then-President Joe Biden vetoed the legislation a month before leaving office.

In July, the Western District of Louisiana issued an order authorizing the court, instead of the habeas petitioners, to serve defendants copies of the lawsuit. The court can also issue a standard scheduling order rather than wait for a clerk or magistrate judge to review it.

While the order doesn’t require judges to set shorter deadlines, Carley Tatman, a Louisiana immigration lawyer, is cautiously optimistic. In practice, it’s still taking several days or even weeks for the courts to issue scheduling orders. 

In addition, Mississippi lawyers have said they have seen movement recently in some of their long-delayed cases. Bramlette has closed over 90 of his cases since July.

However, Liudmila Nafikov is still waiting for a decision in her husband’s case before the judge.

Being apart from her husband of 20 years has been “physically and emotionally taxing,” she said. She is the family’s sole caregiver and has been struggling to pay for basic necessities in addition to her husband’s legal expenses. She adds that her three children are also traumatized after being separated from their father.

All they can do is what they’ve been doing for almost two years now: wait.

“The kids always ask me when Dad will come back home,” Nafikov said. “And I can’t give them an answer because I don’t have it myself.”

The post These Judges Take Months to Decide If Immigrants Have Been Unlawfully Detained appeared first on ProPublica.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by Carla Astudillo.