Chicago’s federal appeals court put a short-term hold on a judge’s order that aimed to release as many as 615 people detained by immigration authorities this year, with certain conditions, scheduling arguments on the matter for Dec. 2.
The ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, known as an administrative stay, means the release of potentially hundreds of people, expected Friday, will be delayed. However, the court has yet to grant the longer-term stay pending appeal sought by the Justice Department.
The move sets the stage for the first appeals court argument to result from the aggressive deportation campaign known as “Operation Midway Blitz.”
While handing down the order in question last week, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings said it wasn’t clear how many of the 615 people he sought to free remained in the country. He also said he didn’t want anyone released who posed a public safety risk.
Cummings has said he would not “second guess” the feds’ criteria for identifying people who would pose a public safety risk. He noted in a separate order this week that the feds had flagged 57 of the 615 as posing such a risk.
Between those individuals and people who have either already been released or deported, that would leave about 442 people eligible for release, Cummings noted Tuesday. However, the feds have since identified seven additional allegedly high-risk people.
Cummings said he’d sought with his order to restore a status quo that existed before the Trump administration changed its interpretation of immigration law. That policy shift subjected people across the country to mandatory detention who previously would have been given a chance for a bond hearing.
Immigration advocates have said the law in question only applies to “noncitizens who recently arrived at a border or port of entry,” not to people who have lived in the country for an extended period of time. And more than 100 judges across the country have apparently agreed with them.
But Cummings noted in a hearing last month, “I do not think the government has appealed,” meaning no higher court has had a chance to weigh in.
The 600 or so detainees come from a list of roughly 1,800 arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Chicago area between June 11 and Oct. 7. Only about 750 of them remain in the country, and about 135 had final orders of removal or criminal convictions, according to Mark Fleming, a lawyer with the National Immigrant Justice Center.
More people could be released upon a review of all people arrested by ICE and Customs and Border Protection between June and November.
Cummings’ order came in the case involving the so-called Castañon Nava settlement agreement. It restricts the ability of ICE agents, and anyone working with them, to make warrantless arrests in Illinois and nearby states.
Cummings last month extended the agreement into February, though that has also been challenged by the Justice Department and subject to the new stay.
The judge said last week that staff attorneys at the courthouse reviewed a mountain of petitions recently filed by people challenging the Trump administration’s reading of the immigration law.
Cummings said that 54 of those people were arrested at work, including 20 landscapers and four ride-share or taxi drivers. Twenty were arrested commuting to or from work, he added, and nine were arrested at a Home Depot or Menards, “presumably either seeking work or to pick up supplies.”
Seven were also arrested at an “immigration-related hearing,” Cummings said, while 11 were arrested in public places like a park, gas station or even a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru.
“It seems highly likely to me that at least some of those individuals are among the 615 detainees who are not subject to mandatory detention,” Cummings said. He also found them unlikely to be members of gangs, “assorted other ne’er-do-wells” or the “worst of the worst.”