Kyle Cheney, senior legal affairs reporter for Politico, speaks to Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff about the thousands of habeas corpus cases he has pored through challenging a Trump administration policy requiring mandatory detention for most detained aliens.

They discuss how judges have ruled on these cases, the degree to which those rulings do or don’t correlate with political expectations, the appellate prospects for such cases, and why they haven’t been resolved by class action.

More reading on this topic:

"Hundreds of judges reject Trump’s mandatory detention policy, with no end in sight," by Kyle Cheney, Politico (January 5, 2026)
"Judges, inundated with immigration cases, don’t mince words on ICE tactics," by Kyle Cheney, Politico (January 26, 2026)
Kyle's thread on Minnesota cases on X

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Lawfare Daily: The Thousands of Lawsuits Challenging Pres. Trump’s Mandatory Alien Detention Policy

The Lawfare Podcast

Lawfare Daily: The Thousands of Lawsuits Challenging Pres. Trump’s Mandatory Alien Detention Policy