Justice Department prosecutors in Washington can’t keep up with all the cases of immigrants suing for their release

Federal prosecutors in Seattle and surrounding areas of Washington state are forfeiting court fights over detained immigrants because they don’t have the resources to keep up with the flood of cases.

Thousands of detainees have challenged their detention in federal court, requiring Justice Department prosecutors to formally respond to all the filings in the cases before a judge can rule. The Justice Department also frequently has to follow-up in court even after the judge rules for the detainee to be released. While the filings are voluminous across the country, the Western District of Washington is effectively removing itself from arguing the cases in court.

The mounting case load has led to “protracted litigation” that “consumes substantial AUSA time,” the US attorney’s office said recently.

“The USAO unfortunately does not have the available resources, at this juncture, to continue entering AUSA appearances in every one of the dozens of [habeas petitions] filed each week,” Seattle’s acting US Attorney Charles Floyd wrote to Chief Judge David Estudillo on October 26.

The change in policy captures an admission by the Trump administration that its hard-line immigration detention policies are still overwhelming the court system, and the Justice Department itself. Prosecutors in other states across the country have previously expressed their frustration with the volume of immigration detention cases they’re facing.

The shift in Seattle and Tacoma also puts more control in the court’s hands to prompt the release of detainees. Floyd’s letter even encourages the court to “directly” email an ICE detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, when an immigrant housed there is to be released.

Spokespeople for the US Attorney’s Office in Seattle and the Justice Department in Washington, DC, didn’t respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

Earlier in President Donald Trump’s second term, the administration changed its policy so that immigrant detainees didn’t have immediate resources to be released through the immigration system. Instead, they would have to file court cases, called habeas corpus petitions, asking for federal judges to approve their releases from detention. This applied to even non-violent immigrants who were detained by ICE. The number of habeas cases skyrocketed in federal courts across the country.

Nearly 100,000 of these cases have been filed in federal district courts since January 2025 — representing hundreds of thousands of undocumented people who are in detention awaiting further immigration proceedings, according to data collected by ProPublica.

The Western District of Washington has had about 2,000 of those cases as of earlier this month, according to ProPublica.

“The large volumes of petitions that are being filed, often copying from other petitions, has severely impacted the government’s ability to respond to specific petitions that require appreciable attorney time from the USAO to investigate and analyze,” the US Attorney in Seattle wrote. “It has also negatively impacted the government’s ability to respond to other civil litigation filed against the government in the District.”

The letter was made public by a different judge this weekend.

“The Government has full access to the relevant facts concerning Petitioner’s detention, yet it has offered no factual or legal basis to rebut his petition,” federal District Judge Kymberly Evanson in Seattle wrote on Saturday in one of the habeas cases where the Justice Department never responded. “The Government’s failure to oppose the petition constitutes forfeiture of the arguments it could have made.”

Judges have released many detained immigrants who file habeas cases. Some districts, like Minnesota, have been so bogged down by the habeas cases, the judges became highly critical of the Justice Department and the Trump administration’s inability to keep up with court orders.

Immigrant rights officials have also been highly critical of how the Trump administration prompted the onslaught of habeas cases.

“Because of the Trump administration’s unlawful detention policies, the federal district courts have been inundated with thousands of habeas petitions over the last two years,” Mark Fleming, the director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center, said on Tuesday. “This is just the latest indication that U.S. attorney resources are being distracted from important matters that communities rely on, all to defend unlawful ICE detentions.”

Questions about the economic accessibility of legal counsel for immigrant detainees is also before the Supreme Court this year.