FILE – Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks to reporters as President Donald Trump listens, June 27, 2025, in the briefing room of the White House in Washington (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File).
A judge in New York City harshly upbraided an immigration lawyer over the quality of their legal services in an atypical ruling on Wednesday.
The three-page order makes exceedingly short work of an ill-fated effort to obtain habeas corpus relief — and a host of additional emergency relief — for three petitioners amid a documented upsurge in such cases across the U.S. court system since summer 2025.
On the same day the petition was filed, the attorney in the case “filed a letter clarifying that the Petition was based on a fundamental error of fact,” according to U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term.
The case comes amid stepped-up efforts by the Trump administration to indefinitely detain certain immigrants following a reconfiguration of how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) views its relevant statutory authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Over the past nine months, in hundreds of district court disputes, judges have considered the interplay and applicability of two distinct INA statutes that outline the government”s detention authority. Many judges have rephrased those statutes using language from a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling penned by Justice Samuel Alito.
In short, the government claims ICE has the authority to subject immigrants to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. §1225(b), which applies to “aliens seeking entry into the United States.”
Conversely, advocates for immigrants — as well as most judges who have ruled on the matter — have turned to 8 U.S.C. §1226(a), which applies to “aliens already present in the United States.”
Here, however, the matter did not get nearly that far — but Vyskocil did take note of the deluge in such cases.
In the order, the judge says the case “usurp[ed] the attention and displace[d] the calendar” of the court “as the wave of habeas corpus petitions filed in the immigration context has done for months.”
Aside from the habeas relief, the petitioners asked for mandamus, declaratory, and injunctive relief. The petitioners’ attorney also filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order and order to show cause why a preliminary injunction should not issue.
To what extent any other requests were extraneous — or germane to the facts — was not immediately clear. The court merely notes the habeas bid was not at all supported by the facts — because it was not even necessary in the first place.
The judge recites and restates the original petition to explain that “the only basis upon which she seeks a writ of habeas corpus is” the “abrupt increase” of “restraints” on one of the petitioners’ liberty “represented by” the imposition of “an ankle monitor.”
But the petitioner was not placed on an ankle monitor.
“Astonishingly, however, the letter filed by Petitioner’s counsel clarifies that ‘[t]he Petitioner has never been under an ankle monitoring,'” the order reads. “By way of clarification, counsel explains that ‘[t]hat incorrect fact was inadvertently included in the petition due to confusion with other cases in the office involving ankle monitoring.”
The judge was none too pleased with that excuse.
“This explanation is unacceptable,” the order continues. “The Court does appreciate that counsel promptly notified the Court of the error. But, beyond exposing himself to the possibility of sanctions … counsel’s filings may also have exposed his client to criminal liability.”
In the filing, the attorney evidently credited their client with saying: “ICE has now placed me on an ankle monitor.”
Vyskocil then chides the lawyer for their mistakes.
“Petitioners like those represented in this action are human beings, whose interests are not served by cut-and-paste lawyering,” the order goes on.
The court notes that the mistakes were plentiful — chastising the attorney for their efforts, so far, to try to salvage the case as it stands.
From the order, at length:
As counsel surely recognizes, no part of the Petition or TRO Application can be ruled upon—or even responded to—prior to amendment. Across those two submissions, the nonexistent “ankle monitor” is mentioned nearly forty times. Merely “strik[ing]” those references, or “withdraw[ing] the Petitioners’ declaration,” will not suffice.
In essence, the court has rejected all the filings so far — but will give the attorney another chance to refile them starting from scratch.
“Accordingly, the Petition and TRO Application are denied without prejudice to re-filing after amendment,” the order concludes. “Should Petitioners wish to file amended papers, the Government’s response thereto shall be due within one week.”
