'Detention roulette': Judge hits Trump admin with 'blistering ruling' over ICE action

District Judge Dale Ho, out of the Southern District of New York, blasted President Donald Trump's administration for turning a simple immigration court proceeding into a game of "detention roulette," and said that it violates the Constitution.

The July case involves petitioner Carlos Javier Lopez Benitez, who ICE detained. He is demanding immediate release, which the judge granted.

Politico's Kyle Cheney pointed out the ruling in which the judge commented that Lopez Benitez is far from the only one dealing with Trump's mass deportation effort. Cheney called it a "blistering" ruling against Trump.

"His counsel assert that his treatment is part of a 'nationwide campaign,' as set forth in an ICE internal memo that has been described in various media reports, which suggests that millions could be swept up in the same way," wrote Judge Ho. "For their part, Respondents cannot confirm or deny the existence of such a new policy. Yet, they appear to maintain that they must categorically detain all undocumented immigrants who they believe have entered the United States unlawfully—no matter how long they have been residing in the country since."

He pointed out that the government officials "seem to be detaining some arbitrary portion of such individuals as they leave their regularly-scheduled immigration court proceedings. But treating attendance in immigration court as a game of detention roulette is not consistent with the constitutional guarantee of due process. And the 'suggestion that government agents may sweep up any person they wish, for [no] reason [whatsoever] . . . so long as the person will, at some unknown point in time, be allowed to ask some other official for his or her release offends the ordered system of liberty that is the pillar of the Fifth Amendment.'"

The judge demanded that the man be sent back to the SDNY district immediately.

Read the full ruling here.