TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — Four immigration judges in Washington state were years ahead of a sea change in immigration enforcement that has reversed a long American tradition.
The denial of bond for many held on immigration charges has unleashed tens of thousands of lawsuits since July, alleging violations of constitutional rights against illegal confinement. The Trump administration suffered a legal setback this month when an appeals court knocked down its policy after two other appeals courts had agreed with it, setting up a likely showdown at the Supreme Court.
The practice had already played out for years in Tacoma, where immigration judges at the Northwest ICE Processing Center started denying bond early this decade. Few people noticed outside the immigration attorneys there. But when the Trump administration adopted the theory last year, it echoed the judges' reasoning.
Neil Floyd, the only one of the four Tacoma judges who agreed to talk to The Associated Press, said clerks researched the issue for about six months before the judges decided Congress never authorized them to grant bond.
“We made the decision that we were going to do it collectively because it was too big a decision for someone to step out that far on their own,” said Floyd, who became the top federal prosecutor in Seattle during President Donald Trump’s second term.
The judges took their cue from a 1996 law that states that “applicants for admission” to the United States must be detained. The law was long interpreted as affecting people recently crossing the border without legal permission. People living here for years were categorized under a different statute that allowed bond hearings.
The Tacoma judges may seem like unlikely figures to spearhead such radical change. While all four — Theresa Scala, the chief Tacoma judge at the time; John Odell; Tammy Fitting; and Floyd — started their careers as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyers, they each granted asylum at rates slightly higher than the national average.
Floyd, who left Tacoma after Trump took office last year to advise the FBI on immigration law before moving to his current position, said the judges' conclusion was a matter of fairness based on the law.
“It is the right interpretation of the law, and it’s the only fair one, because if you enter the United States the right way, by coming and knocking on the door to ask for asylum at a port of entry, the law is 100% clear,” Floyd said. “And it has been from the beginning that you are detained until we decide whether or not we’re going to let you in.”
Immigration lawyers in Tacoma were stunned. They scoured the nation for anything similar and found nothing.
“It was from our perspective, a pretty blatantly prosecutorial push to keep people locked up,” said Matt Adams, an attorney for Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, which sued over the practice. The case has not yet been scheduled for trial.
The lawsuit, filed in March 2025, alleges that the Tacoma judges ignored decades of precedent.
The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which operates more than 70 immigration courts nationwide, did not respond to requests for comment.
In July, ICE announced a major change that mirrors the Tacoma judges' view, stating that immigrants who have been in the U.S. for years are “applicants for admission” if they didn’t enter the U.S. legally and, as a result, were subject to mandatory detention.
It began arguing against all bond hearings. The Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals, which sets policy for courts, agreed with ICE’s arguments in September.
The number of people in ICE custody roughly doubled last year, peaking at about 75,000 in January. ICE plans to spend $38.3 billion to increase detention to 92,300 beds by the end of November, largely by opening warehouses, or “megacenters,” that house up to 10,000 people each. Judges say massive ICE raids have compounded the strain.
Once eligible for bond consideration, some 2 million immigrants now face mandatory detention if arrested. Immigrant detainees have filed more than 40,000 lawsuits since Trump returned to office 16 months ago, according to an AP tally.
Despite the Trump administration's stance, many immigrants have succeeded in the courts. Some federal judges have ordered immediate freedom, while others send cases back to immigration court for bond hearings.
Victor Cruz, a handyman in Portland, Oregon, spent 24 days in the Tacoma detention center after ICE agents arrested him without a warrant. An immigration judge granted him a bond hearing, and he was released in October. He won his immigration case in February.
Cruz, 56, has U.S. citizens in his immediate family and spends weekends playing with his grandchildren. He keeps a folder in his car with all his immigration documents, wary that immigration authorities could detain him again. He said that he met people in detention who had “been there six months, nine months.”
On a recent Friday in Tacoma, Fitting — one of the original four judges — held bond hearings under orders of a federal judge.
She denied bond for an Oregon dishwasher with a 2002 drunken-driving conviction. But she granted $14,000 bond to another immigrant with no criminal record, while saying that his pathway to legal status is tenuous.
Attanasio is a former Associated Press reporter.
In this image made from video, former immigration judge and current First Assistant United States Attorney Charles Neil Floyd speaks during an interview, Feb. 6, 2026, at the Western District of Washington offices in Seattle. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio)
In this image made from video, former immigration judge and current First Assistant United States Attorney Charles Neil Floyd speaks during an interview, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026, at the Western District of Washington offices in Seattle. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio)
Immigrants from Portland, including Victor Cruz, center right, in the gray hooded sweatshirt, embrace family members after being released on bond in Tacoma, Wash., Friday, Nov. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio)
