Denial of hearing
Denial of hearing is the deprivation of liberty, property, or status without the procedural protections — notice, opportunity to be heard, neutral decisionmaker — that due process requires. Concrete forms include summary expulsions, removals, or terminations conducted without the hearings the law requires; emergency procedures used as a routine substitute for ordinary process; and "hearings" so truncated or hostile that they cannot serve their purpose.
2026 Events (12)
ICE Director David Venturella unilaterally reversed torture protections, deported Mexican nationals
ICE Director David Venturella unilaterally reversed torture-based deportation protections for a group of Mexican nationals who had proven to an immigration court they would likely face torture if returned, and the Trump administration deported them in early August 2026. DHS said the move relied on Mexican government assurances the deportees would not be harmed.
North Carolina House Republicans passed HB958, cutting early voting from 17 to 10 days and denying recourse to wrongly-purged voters
On August 4, 2026, the North Carolina House passed House Bill 958 in a 62-47 party-line vote, cutting early voting in primaries, runoffs, and special elections from 17 days to 10 and allowing challenges to early and mail ballots for up to three days after an election. The bill also denies voters removed from the rolls as deceased under a flawed federal-database match any way to prove the removal was a mistake. Protesters chanting in the House gallery were removed as the vote proceeded.
Board of Immigration Appeals ruled asylum fee non-payment fatal to claims despite documented notice failures nationwide
On July 24, 2026, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued a precedent decision, Matter of L-F-R-, holding that failure to pay the $100 annual asylum fee created by the 2025 reconciliation law is fatal to an asylum application. The ruling formalizes a dismissal mechanism already applied in cases where no payment method existed or notice of the fee was not reliably delivered, including a documented San Diego case. The Board limited the fee's reach to asylum claims alone, remanding the respondent's related withholding-of-removal and Convention Against Torture claims for separate consideration.
Marshall Project investigation reveals Hinds County jail holding dozens without grand jury indictment
Dozens of people — perhaps many more — have been held in Hinds County's Raymond Detention Center in Mississippi for months without receiving a grand jury indictment from the district attorney, The Marshall Project reported on July 21, 2026. A prior Marshall Project investigation found at least 60 people jailed for more than three months without indictment as of December 2025, including at least five held for over a year. The practice persists despite a court-ordered federal receivership, and federal receiver Wendell France warned District Attorney Jody Owens the detention delays were "unsustainable and legally problematic."
EOIR held first 'mega master' immigration hearing in San Diego, ordered 50 deported in absentia
The Executive Office for Immigration Review's San Diego Immigration Court held its first "mega master" hearing on June 12, 2026, compressing more than 100 previously-scheduled cases onto a single judge's docket as part of a scheduling practice EOIR has expanded to immigration courts nationwide since attorneys began reporting it in mid-May 2026. Immigration Judge Catherine Halliday-Roberts ordered 50 people deported in absentia in a group hearing that took about eight minutes, in a courtroom with a posted capacity of 36 people; those present included a woman who spoke neither English nor Spanish and did not understand the proceedings.
Woman gives birth on a Brooklyn courtroom bench while in custody awaiting arraignment
On the night of May 15, 2026, Samantha Randazzo, 33 and nine months pregnant, gave birth to a boy on a bench inside Kings County Criminal Court in Brooklyn while in NYPD custody awaiting arraignment on low-level drug-possession and trespassing charges, hours after a city hospital discharged her back into custody. Public defenders who witnessed the birth said she was restrained and lacked medical care, privacy, or dignity; the state Office of Court Administration disputes that she was shackled to the bench. The Brooklyn District Attorney's office later dismissed her charges.
DOJ shut down San Francisco immigration court ahead of schedule after firing most judges, leaving 100,000 cases in limbo
The Justice Department closed the main San Francisco immigration court at 100 Montgomery Street on May 1, 2026, eight months ahead of the originally announced year-end date, after firing or forcing out at least 20 of the court's judges. More than 100,000 pending cases were reassigned to the Concord Immigration Court roughly an hour away; advocates said hearings on transferred cases would not begin until at least December 2026. The court had historically denied asylum at roughly half the national average rate; DOJ cited cost savings, while advocates said the closure targeted a court that had been favorable to asylum seekers.
ICE deported Colombian woman to DR Congo after Congolese officials refused her on medical grounds
On April 16, 2026, ICE placed Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata — a 55-year-old Colombian woman with diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hypothyroidism — on a removal flight to the Democratic Republic of the Congo two days after Congolese officials had formally refused to accept her because they could not guarantee the medical care her conditions required. On May 13, 2026, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon (D.D.C.) granted a 14-day temporary restraining order finding the deportation likely unlawful under the Immigration and Nationality Act and directing the Trump administration to facilitate her return, citing her "daily risk of medical complications, up to and including death." Judge Leon modified that order on June 5, 2026, after finding her lawyers had not established that ICE received the Congolese refusal before the flight departed. She remained in the DRC.
ICE denied humanitarian parole to 79-year-old dementia patient, holding her at Eloy nine months
An Arizona Daily Star investigation published February 15, 2026 found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has largely stopped exercising discretion to release medically vulnerable detainees on humanitarian parole, instead issuing what immigration attorneys describe as blanket denials. The investigation centered on Julia Benitez, a 79-year-old Cuban asylum seeker with dementia who uses a wheelchair, whom ICE held at Eloy Detention Center in Arizona for nine months despite her family's repeated parole requests and her rapidly deteriorating mental condition. Detentions of people 65 and older rose 150% in the first five months of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024, according to a Lee Enterprises analysis of ICE detention data.
ICE deported Army veteran Godfrey Wade to Jamaica while his removal-order appeal was still pending
On February 5, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Godfrey Wade, a 65-year-old honorably discharged Army veteran and lawful permanent resident of the United States since 1975, to Jamaica while his appeal of a 2014 in-absentia removal order remained pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals. ICE detained Wade after a September 13, 2025 traffic stop in Conyers, Georgia, under a removal order he did not learn existed until his green-card renewal was denied in December 2024 — notices of the 2014 hearing and order had been mailed to an address that returned them undeliverable. An immigration judge denied Wade's motion to reopen the case in under two minutes without addressing the returned-notice evidence, and DHS has defended the removal, calling Wade "a criminal illegal alien" who "received full due process."
Arkansans sued the state's parole board and corrections department over denial of counsel and hearings
On February 2, 2026, incarcerated Arkansans represented by the MacArthur Justice Center, ACLU of Arkansas, and Latham & Watkins filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Arkansas Post-Prison Transfer Board and the Department of Corrections, alleging systemic denial of counsel, coerced hearing waivers, and blocked presentation of evidence at parole revocation proceedings. The suit says thousands of people have been returned to prison through the challenged practices.
ICE detained Chicago man acquitted in Bovino murder-for-hire plot, held him without a hearing for weeks
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Juan Espinoza Martinez, a 37-year-old Chicago construction worker, into custody on Jan. 23, 2026 -- one day after a federal jury acquitted him of offering a bounty for the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino -- and held him at the Clay County Justice Center in Brazil, Indiana without a hearing before an immigration judge. U.S. District Judge James Hanlon ruled Feb. 6, 2026 that the continued detention was unlawful for lack of that hearing and ordered the government to release Espinoza Martinez or grant him a bond hearing.
2025 Events (8)
USCIS halted all asylum decisions nationwide after National Guard shooting
On November 28, 2025, USCIS Director Joseph Edlow ordered asylum officers to immediately stop approving, denying, or closing any asylum application nationwide, regardless of the applicant's nationality, following the shooting of two National Guard members near the White House by an Afghan national. The indefinite halt suspended the statutory asylum adjudication process under INA §208 for all pending applicants, freezing them in limbo with no path to a decision or hearing, and served as the originating operational directive later formalized by the December 2, 2025 USCIS Policy Memorandum PM-602-0192.
USCIS halted all asylum decisions for applicants of every nationality after D.C. National Guard shooting
On November 28, 2025, USCIS Director Joseph Edlow announced that the agency had "halted all asylum decisions" pending completion of enhanced vetting for "every alien," telling officers they could continue interviews up to the point of decision but could not approve, deny, or close any application regardless of the applicant's nationality. The operational directive—issued two days after an Afghan national shot two National Guard members near the White House—went beyond the concurrent Afghan-specific pause and froze affirmative asylum adjudication nationwide. CBS News reported the officer guidance on November 29. The pause was later formalized in USCIS Policy Memorandum PM-602-0192 (December 2, 2025) and declared unlawful by a federal court on June 5, 2026.
ICE detained Irish national Seamus Culleton, then blocked his green-card interview and reversed his court-approved bond during prolonged detention
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Irish citizen Seamus Culleton on September 9, 2025, after running his license plate at a Home Depot in Saugus, Massachusetts, and transferred him to Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas. During his ensuing detention, ICE caused him to miss at least two scheduled USCIS interviews confirming his pending marriage-based green card, and DHS successfully moved to reverse an immigration judge's $4,000 bond grant on a jurisdictional ground specific to the Visa Waiver Program he entered under.
USCIS declared SIJS application fee non-waivable, cutting off abused children from congressional immigration protection
On July 22, 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published a Federal Register notice declaring that the $250 Special Immigrant Juvenile Status application fee is non-waivable, effective immediately, under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The agency acknowledged the law did not include an explicit no-waiver provision but interpreted the mandatory fee language as barring any waiver. SIJS, created by Congress in 1990, provides immigration protection to children who have been abused, neglected, or abandoned and who cannot safely return to their countries of origin. The removal of the fee waiver made the protection financially inaccessible to the indigent children it was designed to protect.
DHS stripped independent board review from immigration civil-penalty appeals, cutting the window to 15 business days
On June 27, 2025, DHS and DOJ's Executive Office for Immigration Review published an interim final rule that took appeals of immigration civil penalties away from DOJ's Board of Immigration Appeals and gave them to a DHS supervisory officer, while cutting the response window from 30 days to 15 business days and eliminating the option for an in-person interview. The rule governs fines of up to $998 per day under INA Section 274D for failing to depart after a final removal order; DHS told CNN in 2026 that it had assessed more than $84 billion in such fines against over 100,000 people since the start of Trump's second term, including a $1.8 million fine against a man who had already left the country and twice submitted evidence of his departure.
Interior Department rescinded Scotts Valley Band's casino eligibility without notice, days after donor-backed rival tribe's lobbying push
On March 26, 2025, the Department of the Interior rescinded its January 10, 2025 determination that the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians' proposed Vallejo, California casino site qualified for gaming, without giving the tribe notice or an opportunity to respond. The rescission came one week after lobbyists for the rival Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation — which donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration and later $2 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC — asked Deputy Assistant Secretary Ken Bellmard for precisely that two-step rescission approach. A federal judge ruled on October 30, 2025 that the rescission violated the tribe's due-process rights and vacated it.
DHS fired FEMA CFO Mary Comans and three other officials without a hearing after Musk criticized migrant-hotel payments
On February 11, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced it had fired FEMA Chief Financial Officer Mary Comans, two program analysts, and a grant specialist, saying they had "circumvented leadership" to approve $59 million in Shelter and Services Program payments to New York City for migrant-hotel costs. The firings followed public criticism of the payments by then-DOGE head Elon Musk, and Comans was terminated without a hearing or the chance to respond to the allegations against her.
Trump ordered Bureau of Prisons to transfer 37 Biden-commuted death-row inmates to Supermax as punishment for their clemency
On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to house 37 federal inmates whose death sentences Biden had commuted in conditions matching "the monstrosity of their crimes," and the Bureau of Prisons moved to redesignate them to the ADX Florence Supermax facility. A federal judge found in February 2026 that the redesignation process had been predetermined and blocked further transfers as a due-process "sham."