Federal authorities in New Jersey have violated dozens of judicial orders in recent months as immigration cases have surged in the courts, the Justice Department acknowledged in a court filing, including by transferring some detained immigrants to other jurisdictions and, in one instance, improperly deporting a man to Peru.
The admissions came in a declaration filed by Associate Deputy Attorney General Jordan Fox, who has recently been helping lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, and who is also a top adviser to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
They are the latest example of how federal judges in various jurisdictions have been seeking to hold the Trump administration accountable for episodes in which authorities have failed to comply with court orders as President Donald Trump has sought to rapidly increase deportations.
Fox issued her declaration in response to an order from U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz, who has been overseeing a lawsuit from an immigrant challenging his detention. Farbiarz was frustrated that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had transferred the man to another jurisdiction — despite the judge’s order to keep him in New Jersey.
So earlier this month, court records show, Farbiarz directed prosecutors to review similar immigration lawsuits filed in the state’s federal courts since December and “enumerate each instance in which the Respondents or people acting on their behalf violated an order issued by a judge of this district.”
Fox, in her response filed last week, said her office had identified 547 such cases — known as habeas petitions — filed since early December. And in 56 instances, the declaration said, prosecutors did not comply with a judicial order.
Some concerned lawyers’ behavior, the document says, including six instances in which attorneys missed filing deadlines, and 10 cases in which government attorneys did not provide complete discovery.
But others outlined ways in which federal authorities handled immigrants in custody. In 17 instances, Fox wrote, ICE or other federal authorities transferred immigrants in detention after judges had ordered them not to be moved.
Fox wrote that each of those mistakes “occurred inadvertently,” because of either communication delays or “administrative oversight,” and that prosecutors in each case had agreed to return the petitioner to New Jersey.
In December, court records show, ICE also “erroneously removed” a man and deported him to Peru despite a judicial injunction prohibiting his removal.
Fox wrote that the deportation “occurred due to an inadvertent administrative oversight by the local ICE custodian.” She said that authorities worked with the man’s lawyer to try to arrange his return to the United States, but that he “decided to remain in Peru instead.”
Farbiarz, the judge, responded in a filing Tuesday by crediting Fox and her staff for providing thorough answers to his questions.
Still, he wrote, he was concerned that the violation he observed in his case was apparently “not fully an outlier.”
“Judicial orders,” he wrote, “should never be violated.”
He instructed the Justice Department to file an affidavit “detailing the procedures that are in place (or that will be put in place in the near-term) to ensure that court orders issued by district judges in New Jersey are timely and consistently complied with.”
