Federal Appeals Judge Says Trump Admin’s Immigrant Detention Policy Is Like Japanese Internment Camp [Op-Ed]

A federal appeals court had to explain to the Trump administration that mass detention without due process is not just wrong; it’s Japanese internment camp wrong.

According to Newsweek, in a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rejected the administration’s argument that millions of immigrants it claims entered the country unlawfully could be held in mandatory detention without access to bond hearings.

Judge Nicole Berner, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, didn’t hold back in essentially calling President Donald Trump and his administration what they are: white nationalist government officials, hopped up on “racial animus,” which they wield to oppress minorities, just like U.S. government officials of old.

“Mass detention of marginalized individuals without due process harkens back to some of the darkest moments in our country’s history,” Berner said, citing the 1892 Geary Act, which punished Chinese workers with hard labor if they did not carry their papers on them at all times.

“Fifty years later, with racial animus masquerading as national interest, the government ordered the mass detention of all individuals of Japanese descent present in the United States during World War II. Nearly 120,000 people were sent to internment camps within our borders,” Berner continued. “The stain of these detentions on our nation—and the judiciary’s abdication of its obligation to protect basic freedoms—continues to haunt us. Those shameful and abhorrent past detentions were limited in scope in comparison to the mandatory detention that the Government urges us today to find that Congress established thirty years ago in an ambiguously worded statutory provision. We decline to do so.”

Well, that was quite the history lesson Berner wrote for people who probably don’t read and definitely hate history.

Anyway, here’s how we got here in the first place, via Newsweek:

The case stems from a 2025 policy shift by the Trump administration that sought to place many undocumented immigrants under a section of federal immigration law requiring detention during removal proceedings. Before that change, immigrants already living in the U.S. generally fell under a separate provision that allowed them to seek release through immigration bond hearings.

The plaintiffs, Oscar Enrique Lopez Garcia and Juan Jose Rivera, had each lived in the U.S. for decades before being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2025. The government did not argue either man posed a danger to the community or a flight risk, but they were initially denied bond hearings under the administration’s new interpretation.

The Fourth Circuit concluded that immigrants in their position must be detained under a section of law that permits bond hearings rather than one requiring mandatory detention. The court therefore upheld lower-court rulings ordering that they be given the opportunity to seek release.

So, the same administration that has adopted the practices of arresting migrants at their immigration hearings and while they’re renewing their paperwork, is slapping ankle monitors on people it has marked for deportation after stripping away their temporary protected status, has attempted to deport documented immigrants because they engage in protests the president doesn’t like, and has baselessly accused migrants of being gang members just to justify deporting them — is also trying to get in the way of detainees’ legal right to bond. It’s almost as if federal judges are all that is standing between immigrants, documented or otherwise, and the anti-migrant Gestapo.

In fact, according to Politico, this decision marks the Trump administration’s ninth straight loss in bringing this matter to federal appeals courts. Nine of the 11 appellate circuits that have taken it up have agreed that the administration’s approach relies on a misreading of the 1996 immigration reform law that established current deportation and detention policies. So, of course, the administration is planning to run to its (sometimes) friends at the U.S. Supreme Court for help.

“That is why DHS recently sought Supreme Court review of a similar decision from the Sixth Circuit,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Newsweek. “Opinions from the Board of Immigration Appeals and two other federal courts of appeals reflect the soundness of DHS’s legal position.

“This legal position was the nail in the coffin for Biden’s catch and release policies. That is why the left and their activist proxies on the judiciary are resisting it so vigorously. President Trump and Secretary Mullin are now enforcing the law as it was actually written to keep America safe,” the spokesperson continued. “As our record in the U.S. Supreme Court demonstrates, the law is on our side.”

Yeah — their record with SCOTUS demonstrates that SCOTUS has a conservative majority of Trump sycophants, nothing more. And remember, that conservative majority didn’t aid Trump in pretending birthright citizenship isn’t protected by the Constitution.

But we shall see.

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