4,400 court losses later, ICE detentions are still surging

WASHINGTON — U.S. courts have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that Immigration and Customs Enforcement unlawfully detained people under the Trump administration’s immigration policies, according to a Reuters review of court decisions and filings. The volume of rulings has become its own headline — not because judges suddenly turned “soft,” but because the government has kept making the same legal arguments, and many judges have kept rejecting them.

The clash centers on who gets a chance at release while their immigration cases move through the system. Reuters reported that the administration shifted away from long-standing legal interpretations that allowed some immigrants to seek bond hearings and potential release, instead pushing broader detention. In response, detainees have increasingly turned to habeas corpus petitions — emergency-style court filings challenging unlawful confinement — which has produced a stream of rulings ordering releases or criticizing ICE practices.

Despite those court defeats, ICE has continued widespread detention. Reuters reported the detained population has reached about 68,000, roughly a 75% increase since Trump took office in January 2025. The agency’s position, as described by Reuters, is that its approach is lawful enforcement and that the legal logjam is being driven in part by what the administration calls activist judging.

The rulings are spilling into operational chaos. Repeated court losses have overwhelmed government attorneys and diverted resources that would otherwise go to criminal cases. Judges have also criticized ICE for detaining people without warrants and for transfers or continued detention that appear to ignore court orders in some cases.

Individual cases have fueled the outrage. Reuters described examples including a Venezuelan high school student detained during a traffic stop and a five-year-old Ecuadorean boy taken from his home — details that have ricocheted online and intensified scrutiny of who is being detained and why.

The broader political impact is that the administration’s toughest immigration posture is now colliding with a steady drumbeat of courtroom language calling parts of the approach illegal. Even when ICE wins in some courts, the sheer number of losses creates a narrative of a system running ahead of its legal footing — and in immigration, perception can matter almost as much as policy because it shapes public trust and compliance.

For now, the legal battle looks less like a single Supreme Court showdown and more like a grinding fight across dozens of courtrooms, one detainee at a time. The question is whether the administration recalibrates policy to reduce those losses — or keeps pushing until higher courts settle the issue definitively.