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ICE kept detaining Nevada immigrants without bond hearings past a court-ordered release deadline, defying a judge's March ruling

On July 6, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to release seven Nevada immigration detainees by a court-ordered deadline, continuing to enforce a "mandatory detention" policy that federal judge Richard Boulware II had ruled unlawful in March. Boulware, citing a broader pattern of noncompliance including an April cross-district transfer and a May detention without lawful basis, wrote that the government was "rebelling" against binding court orders and ordered the seven plaintiffs released without bond hearings pending their removal proceedings.

Part of: Trump ICE Defiance of Federal Court Orders

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada

Abuses documented

Actors

On July 6, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to release seven Nevada immigration detainees by a court-ordered deadline, continuing to detain them under a "mandatory detention" policy that U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware II had already ruled unlawful. Boulware's March 30, 2026 decision in Jacobo-Ramirez v. Noem (D. Nev.) held that DHS/ICE's policy of treating longtime residents who entered without inspection as "applicants for admission" -- stripping them of bond hearings -- violated federal law, and vacated it under the Administrative Procedure Act, a ruling estimated to affect hundreds of Nevada detainees. The government did not appeal.

Despite that standing order, ICE kept detaining people under the same policy. In a subsequent ruling on a suit brought by seven detainees held without a warrant or bond determination, Boulware found the agency in a pattern of ongoing noncompliance, citing an April case in which ICE transferred a detainee out of the district in violation of a court order and a May case in which it failed to provide any lawful basis for continued detention. "The government is rebelling against the basic principle underlying our constitutional order that 'an order issued by a court ... must be obeyed by the parties until it is reversed,'" Boulware wrote. He ordered the seven plaintiffs released by Monday, July 6, and barred from re-detention pending their removal proceedings; as of the following day none had been released. ACLU of Nevada executive director Athar Haseebullah, representing the plaintiffs, said he had "never seen anything quite like this" from a government agency.

Why we recorded this

Due process requires that people held in federal custody receive a timely hearing before a neutral judge, and a foundational rule of the constitutional order is that binding court orders must be obeyed until reversed on appeal. ICE continued enforcing a mandatory-detention policy a federal judge had already ruled unlawful, keeping people without bond hearings past the court's own release deadline and without appealing the ruling. This archive records agencies defying binding judicial orders because it treats compliance with the courts as optional, eroding the rule of law that constrains executive power.

Sources

  1. Federal court rules in favor of ACLU of Nevada in major class action immigration lawsuit — ACLU of Nevada primary accessed July 8, 2026
  2. A federal judge in Nevada says ICE is 'rebelling' against his order to release immigrants — The Nevada Independent investigative accessed July 8, 2026
  3. Nevada Judge Blocks ICE No-Bail Policy in Deportation Cases — VisaVerge secondary accessed July 8, 2026

See also