{"id":29958,"date":"2026-02-23T18:24:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T18:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=29958"},"modified":"2026-02-23T18:24:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T18:24:45","slug":"activist-judges-invent-squatters-rights-for-illegal-aliens-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=29958","title":{"rendered":"Activist Judges Invent \u2018Squatter\u2019s Rights\u2019 for Illegal Aliens"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Federal judges in Texas are openly testing the limits of a landmark appellate court decision that upheld President Donald Trump\u2019s mass immigration detention policy \u2014 a move that could reignite one of the most contentious legal battles of his second term.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019s broad authority to detain immigrants targeted for deportation, including those without criminal records who have resided in the United States for decades.<\/p>\n

The 2-1 decision represented a major victory for the administration\u2019s enforcement-first approach to immigration, effectively endorsing large-scale, mandatory detention as consistent with federal law.<\/p>\n

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But within days of that ruling, two district judges in Texas \u2014 both within the 5th Circuit\u2019s jurisdiction \u2014 signaled they would continue granting release petitions in certain cases, relying on novel legal theory rather than statutory interpretation.<\/p>\n

Judge Kathleen Cardone, a George W. Bush appointee based in El Paso, ruled late Monday in at least five cases that the circuit court\u2019s decision \u201chas no bearing on this Court\u2019s determination of whether [the petitioner] is being detained in violation of his constitutional right to procedural due process.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Similarly, Judge David Briones, a Clinton appointee also in El Paso, wrote that immigrants who have \u201cestablished connections\u201d in the United States through long-term residence acquire a \u201cliberty interest in being free from government detention without due process of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Both judges invoked the Fifth Amendment\u2019s due process protections to argue that certain immigrants\u2014particularly those with longstanding ties to the country\u2014cannot be detained indefinitely without an individualized hearing before a neutral arbiter. Their rulings effectively carve out a constitutional exception to the 5th Circuit\u2019s endorsement of blanket detention authority.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

A Justice Department official, speaking on background to\u00a0Politico, criticized the rulings as the product of \u201crogue judges\u201d advancing \u201cresults-oriented decisions to suit their personal policy preferences.\u201d<\/p>\n

The appellate decision, while binding across the 5th Circuit\u2014which covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi\u2014has 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\u2019s implications, requesting additional legal briefings from both government and defense attorneys.<\/p>\n

The 5th Circuit\u2019s ruling followed months of escalating legal challenges to the Trump administration\u2019s stepped-up enforcement operations, which have led to record numbers of ICE arrests and detentions since the president\u2019s reinstatement of the \u201cmandatory custody\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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The judges\u2019 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 \u201can invented squatter\u2019s right to remain in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are in the United States without authorization, you are committing a federal crime,\u201d Glahn\u00a0wrote. \u201cThere is no exception in the law for successfully evading the law for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted that the judges\u2019 reasoning effectively establishes a \u201cliberty interest\u201d for noncitizens who have lived in the country for extended periods, despite being under removal orders. \u201cHow does he decide when a connection has been established that overrides federal law?\u201d Glahn asked. \u201cIs it de facto citizenship? Common law citizenship? Can these noncitizens now vote?\u201d<\/p>\n

The volume of habeas petitions challenging ICE detention continues to surge nationwide\u2014862 cases have already been filed in Minnesota this year alone, according to court data cited by Glahn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Getty Images This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion. Federal judges in Texas are openly testing the limits of a landmark appellate court decision that upheld President … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29959,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29958\/revisions\/29959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}