A federal judge in Florida appointed by President Donald Trump just nine months ago seethed at the administration in a new ruling, accusing them of cooking up a flimsy excuse to bypass his own judgment in favor of a career official within the administration itself.
Judge Kyle Dudek’s ruling concerned the immigration detention case of Dmitrii Iastrebov, a noncitizen who has been sitting in lockup without a proper hearing — only for the Trump administration to argue that the administration’s own appointed immigration judge, rather than the U.S. district judge, should be the final word on the matter.
This case, wrote Dudek, “borders on the surreal … an immigration judge refused to hold the ordered hearing, claiming Iastrebov is not covered by § 1226(a) and thus ineligible for bond. Instead of defending this Court’s mandate, the Government’s counsel acquiesced in that refusal and waived any administrative appeal. Now, faced with a renewed habeas petition, the Government casually announces that its previous concession ‘was in error’ and asks this Court to reverse itself and hold that Iastrebov is instead subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225.”
“The Government was right the first time,” wrote Dudek. “And its request for a do-over here is not just legally unsupportable, it is a masterclass in litigation cynicism. A federal court is not a testing lab where the Executive branch can pilot a concession to get a case closed, stand by silently while its own administrative process flouts the resulting mandate, and then stroll back in demanding a clean slate. Give me a break.”
Iastrebov’s right to a hearing, the judge continued, has already been litigated “in painstaking detail … and because the Government has shown that it cannot follow this Court’s explicit directions and offers zero assurance that it will comply with the statutory process it previously championed, Iastrebov will be immediately released.”
This court loss comes after a series of other legal defeats for Trump on various aspects of immigration policy, including a judge in Massachusetts striking down Trump’s $100,000 fee for high-skilled immigrant workers.
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