Judge Troy Nunley was fed up.
Federal immigration officials had again defied his authority by keeping the man in a California City detention center after Nunley ordered his release. When he was finally released, the man was given a ride on the street without a passport, driver’s license or other personal belongings. The judge’s request for the goods to be returned was silent.
On Tuesday, Nunley, the chief judge of the Eastern District of California, slapped Justice Department attorney Jonathan Yu with a formal penalty and a $250 fine.
With a stern command, Nunley laid out why he was forced to take such a rare step. The fine may have been less than a traffic ticket, but it almost sounds like the judge has formally instructed the state attorney.
By Yu’s own admission, he was immersed in work. In his order, Nunley recounted the attorney’s claim that he had been served with more than 300 nearly identical cases in the past three months, all of whom were detained immigrants who claimed they were being held without reason.
Court filings show that many cases in California involve longtime US citizens who have been unexpectedly sent to prison after frequent run-ins with immigration officials. One was an Afghan who had helped the American war effort. Another Cambodian grandmother of 8 who fled Pol Pot’s killing fields as a girl some 50 years ago.
Until last year, most would fight to be deported on bond after a brief hearing with an immigration judge. Now, their only hope for release is to apply for a writ of habeas corpus — a legal tactic once reserved for death row inmates and suspected terrorists — that is overwhelming the country’s overcrowded courts with thousands of urgent cases.
A lawyer for the Trump administration said he was trying to “assess” the situation, but Nunley found that he repeatedly failed to comply, leaving people with the right to freedom of movement stuck in detention.
“The Court is unconvinced,” he wrote, imposing sanctions.
The order came days after Nunley took the unusual step of declaring a “state of emergency” in the region, which covers nearly half of California, from the Oregon border to the Mojave Desert inland, including Fresno, Bakersfield and Sacramento.
Last year, the Eastern District received more applications from immigration detainees than anywhere else in the United States: More than 2,700 since January, compared to less than 500 last year and 18 in 2024.
Detainees are seen behind a fence at an ICE detention facility in Adelanto, California on July 10, 2025.
(Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
In an interview with The Times, Nunley said that dealing with the increase in workload since last summer was “like being hit over the head with a bat.”
“We stay up all night doing these crimes,” he said.
So far this year, six judges in the Eastern District have ordered the release of nearly 2,000 people.
“Most of the cases we see are cases where people shouldn’t be arrested,” Nunley said. “They should be getting a hearing to decide whether to stay in this country or not, and until they get those hearings, they should be free.”
Since last July, the Department of Homeland Security has ordered that all immigrants it arrests be subject to “mandatory detention” – a policy that only applied to those apprehended at the border.
The change comes four days after President Trump signed a spending bill that sets aside $45 billion to expand the federal immigration enforcement network.
“This was a sea change in the way the government read the law,” said My Khanh Ngo, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “Almost all the judges who have looked at this have agreed that these people should get bonds, while thousands of people are still in jail.”
Elizabeth Vega, 15, right, and Darlene Rumualdo, 15, of Torres High School join labor activists, religious leaders and immigrant rights groups to protest the nationwide immigration crackdown at La Placita Olvera in downtown Los Angeles on January 23, 2026.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Long-term US citizens who might have fought to be removed from their home — where they could easily gather evidence to support their case and talk to lawyers — are instead being held indefinitely.
Many have no criminal record. Some have lived in the US for so long that their countries of origin no longer exist.
“People are detained in the same institutions as people accused of crimes, who have been convicted of crimes … and you tell people that you must not leave,” said Ngo. “Detaining people and not giving them a chance to get out of jail is a way to force people to give up their claims.”
The habeas process can take weeks or months depending on the judge and the state.
“When immigration cases went down in our state, we were hit harder than others outside of West Texas,” Nunley said. “In the beginning we had more cases than anyone else.”
Today, data compiled by ProPublica and legal activist groups including the Immigration Justice Transparency Initiative show nearly a quarter of the nearly 30,000 active complaints in the United States are in California courts. Nunley’s tables show half of California’s cases are in his district, where a strong law enforcement storm, a large immigrant population and a large number of detention centers have produced a large number of habeas petitions.
Crimes depend on the Constitution’s guarantee of due process before they can be deprived of life, liberty or property. But according to court filings, in some cases the government has argued that the “Fifth Amendment does not apply” to detained immigrants.
DOJ attorneys who respond to freedom requests now often complain that they are being pressured by the paperwork.
Judges are used to having government lawyers comply with their orders and remain angry.
In the Central District of California, which includes LA and surrounding areas, Judge Sunshine Sykes wrote a scathing ruling earlier this year that said the Trump administration was imposing “horror on people who don’t live there.”
Sykes is one of several judges across the country who have tried to force the government to restart bond hearings. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked that decision in March, leaving the habeas system in effect for now. But with challenges or recent decisions in multiple circuits, experts say the battle is set for the Supreme Court.
“ICE has the law and the facts on its side, and it adheres to all court decisions until they are finally struck down by the highest court in the land,” a Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email to The Times.
Woman holding “ICE not welcome here!” sign with a vigil in San Pedro in January.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Lawyers fighting for the release of those arrested under the Trump administration’s police detention law say that they were initially not equipped to fight these cases because they have been very rare.
Many federal judges saw a handful of habeas petitions before last summer — and suddenly had hundreds of requests for emergency relief, according to Jean Reisz, co-director of the USC Immigration Clinic.
Reisz said there are efforts to get pro bono legal teams trained in how to successfully argue habeas cases, “but it’s taking a while to get up to speed.”
A federal agent is asking residents to back down after a shooting during an immigration enforcement operation in Willowbrook on January 21, 2026.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
At the same time, Reisz said, lawyers are pressuring judges presiding over cases to act quickly, because endless procedural delays ensure that people remain in prison.
“Most habeas petitions are asking for a temporary restraining order, and that requires emergency decisions from the courts, which requires the courts to act very quickly,” Reisz said.
In California state courts, the backlog remains in the thousands. Nunley said the system is struggling to keep up with the crush of cases.
“There is nothing to say that non-citizens should not be given due process,” said Nunley. “These are our people, they live in our district.
