Federal judges in Texas are openly testing the limits of a landmark appellate court decision that upheld President Donald Trump’s mass immigration detention policy — a move that could reignite one of the most contentious legal battles of his second term.
Last Friday, a three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Trump administration, affirming the government’s broad authority to detain immigrants targeted for deportation, including those without criminal records who have resided in the United States for decades.
The 2-1 decision represented a major victory for the administration’s enforcement-first approach to immigration, effectively endorsing large-scale, mandatory detention as consistent with federal law.
But within days of that ruling, two district judges in Texas — both within the 5th Circuit’s jurisdiction — signaled they would continue granting release petitions in certain cases, relying on novel legal theory rather than statutory interpretation.
Judge Kathleen Cardone, a George W. Bush appointee based in El Paso, ruled late Monday in at least five cases that the circuit court’s decision “has no bearing on this Court’s determination of whether [the petitioner] is being detained in violation of his constitutional right to procedural due process.”
Similarly, Judge David Briones, a Clinton appointee also in El Paso, wrote that immigrants who have “established connections” in the United States through long-term residence acquire a “liberty interest in being free from government detention without due process of law.”
Both judges invoked the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections to argue that certain immigrants—particularly those with longstanding ties to the country—cannot be detained indefinitely without an individualized hearing before a neutral arbiter. Their rulings effectively carve out a constitutional exception to the 5th Circuit’s endorsement of blanket detention authority.
The decisions are notable not only for their defiance of appellate precedent but also for their practical implications: the Department of Homeland Security has frequently transferred detainees from other states to Texas facilities, where these same judges preside over large numbers of habeas petitions challenging ICE custody.
A Justice Department official, speaking on background to Politico, criticized the rulings as the product of “rogue judges” advancing “results-oriented decisions to suit their personal policy preferences.”
The appellate decision, while binding across the 5th Circuit—which covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi—has not yet been fully applied by all district courts. Some judges, such as Trump appointee Fernando Rodriguez Jr. in Brownsville, have paused pending cases to review the ruling’s implications, requesting additional legal briefings from both government and defense attorneys.
The 5th Circuit’s ruling followed months of escalating legal challenges to the Trump administration’s stepped-up enforcement operations, which have led to record numbers of ICE arrests and detentions since the president reinstated the “mandatory custody” directive in 2025. That policy eliminated broad categories of release discretion that had existed under prior administrations, requiring detention for nearly all noncitizens with final removal orders.
The judges’ maneuvering in Texas has sparked criticism from conservative legal analysts who accuse the courts of manufacturing new rights for individuals who entered the country unlawfully. Bill Glahn, a policy fellow with the Center of the American Experiment, called the rulings “an invented squatter’s right to remain in America.”
“If you are in the United States without authorization, you are committing a federal crime,” Glahn wrote. “There is no exception in the law for successfully evading the law for decades.”
He noted that the judges’ reasoning effectively establishes a “liberty interest” for noncitizens who have lived in the country for extended periods, despite being under removal orders. “How does he decide when a connection has been established that overrides federal law?” Glahn asked. “Is it de facto citizenship? Common law citizenship? Can these noncitizens now vote?”
The volume of habeas petitions challenging ICE detention continues to surge nationwide—862 cases have already been filed in Minnesota this year alone, according to court data cited by Glahn.