Immigration Bond Hearing Denials Raise Judicial Power Questions

There are “serious separation of powers concerns,” a federal judge said Thursday, of the Trump administration’s continued denial of bond hearings to a nationwide class of detained noncitzens in spite of a final court order requiring the hearings.

Judge Sunshine Sykes said she was troubled by an email Chief Immigration Judge Teresa Riley sent last week with guidance that, despite Sykes’ order, immigration judges should follow a prior Board of Immigration Appeals decision and decline to grant bond hearings to those the administration categorizes as subject to mandatory detention.

The government is deferring to an executive agency’s understanding of the ...