Amid the ongoing debate over immigration policies in the United States, a federal judge in Illinois has delivered a scathing critique of the Trump administration’s approach to immigration detention. Specifically, the judge targeted the U.S. Department of Justice’s efforts to justify these policies.

This judicial rebuke emerged from a case centered on the Trump administration’s persistent attempts to modify the classification of certain immigrants under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) jurisdiction. The case, which has been subject to extensive legal challenges, highlights broader concerns about the administration’s immigration strategy.

U.S. District Judge Edmond E. Chang, appointed by Barack Obama, swiftly ruled in favor of the petitioner, issuing a memorandum opinion and order. This decision came despite the complications posed by the government shutdown, underscoring the urgency and importance of the matter.

The case in question involves Jaime Guartazaca Sumba, an immigrant who has resided in the United States for nearly ten years. Over the summer, ICE detained Sumba, prompting his attorneys to file a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on October 24. Due to the sensitive nature of the case, many details remain confidential, yet Judge Chang’s decision to grant a conditional writ of habeas corpus suggests significant legal and humanitarian concerns.

While the details of the case are mostly under lock and key, Chang recited a few while granting a conditional writ of habeas corpus.

“At thirteen years old, in 2016, Petitioner arrived in the United States as an unaccompanied minor from El Salvador,” the opinion and order begins. “He has lived in this country ever since and, in 2019, was granted Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) status, making him eligible for Lawful Permanent Residency. In recognition of that fact, and in recognition of Petitioner’s entitlement to an adjudication of his asylum application (still pending), an immigration judge closed Petitioner’s removal proceedings in 2021, so that Petitioner could wait out the years-long backlog on his claims.”

Still, despite meeting those benchmarks and his immigration court victory, the Trump administration argues “they are required to detain” Guartazaca Sumba “without bond, indefinitely, because he is somehow still an ‘arriving alien,’ subject to mandatory detention.”

Legally relevant to the case is the statute ICE cites for such mandatory detention authority, 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b).

Under this statute, the prospect of release from immigration detention is dim – in fact, detention is widely considered mandatory.

But that’s the wrong statute for Guartazaca Sumba, the judge found.

“Petitioner is not an ‘arriving alien,’” the order goes on. “He has not been ‘arriving’ in this country for almost a decade. [The government makes] no cogent argument to the contrary. Accordingly, section 1225 cannot apply”

Instead, the court opined, “[t]o the extent [ICE has] any lawful authority to detain” Guartazaca Sumba, the only section of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that may apply is § 1226(a). This statute allows for certain long-term immigrant residents to be released on money bond or parole after being detained.

“That is exactly what an immigration judge concluded on July 21, 2025, when that court ordered Petitioner released on bond of $10,000,” Chang goes on. “The [Trump administration] has now stayed that release order, however, leading to Petitioner’s re-detention.”

The judge goes on to say the government has raised “multiple red-herring side-issues risk distraction and detour” in bringing a new case against the petitioner. And, the court wants to cut through all that.

From the opinion, at length:

But, at bottom, this case presents only a minor variation on a recent-but-widespread pattern of non-citizens’ being improperly detained under the mandatory detention statute, which courts across the country have overwhelmingly rejected. Indeed, “[m]ore than 100 federal judges,” appointed by every president since Ronald Reagan, “have now ruled at least 200 times” that the practice is illegal. Having received near-universal rebuke on that starter theory for sweeping detention, it seems Respondents now seek to move the goalpost in a new way, by redefining “arriving alien.” But words have meaning, and there is no sense in which Petitioner has been “arriving” since 2016.

Accordingly, the Court will grant this Petition and order Petitioner released…

Chang relies on a U.S. Supreme Court case from 2018. Stylized as Jennings v. Rodriguez, the upshot from the fractured holdings in that case has proven to be something of a double-edged sword — allowing for indefinite detention under § 1225(b) and for parole under § 1226(a).

Applying the precedent to Guartazaca Sumba’s case, the judge categorizes the habeas corpus ruling as something of an easy call.

“Because Petitioner is detained under section 1226, he is entitled to a bond hearing wherein the Government bears the burden of showing his detention’s necessity,” the court determined.

As for the government’s arguments, the judge says the mechanism of § 1225 “is more complicated than” what the Trump administration claims in general “and clearly does not match Petitioner’s history.”

The court says the specific facts of Guartazaca Sumba’s case make the government’s § 1225 arguments all the more untenable.

“Respondents’ argument is somewhat unbelievable since, at the time of his detention, Petitioner had been living in this country for more than nine years, since he was thirteen years old,” the court goes on. “In what sense imaginable could he be deemed ‘arriving?’”

Again the court’s order, at length, emphasis in original:

Petitioner certainly was not “coming or attempting to come into the United States” or “seeking transit through the United States” or “interdicted in international or United States waters” when ICE encountered him near his home in Lynn, Massachusetts. The merits of this case are truly just that simple—Petitioner was not an “arriving alien” at the time of his detention. Therefore, section 1225(b)(1) does not apply.

Under the terms of the order, Guartazaca Sumba must be released from ICE custody and given a document that allows him to regain employment.