Judges and attorneys who work at the Varick Street court in New York City are observing a pattern: DHS is pulling out all the stops to detain everyone it can get its hands on. From January 20 to the end of June, new detainee cases at Varick Street filed by DHS more than tripled from the previous year’s count. Still, current numbers are far from the mass detention [that] Trump and ICE leadership promise their followers, and there are signs that these last six months have been a warmup for the detention régime that is to come.

One detainee was granted bond twice only to have DHS prevent his release by imposing an automatic stay on his bond ruling. This authority was rarely used in the past but is becoming increasingly common under the current administration. The detainee’s attorney, Ilana Herr, says [that] her client’s case “shows how the goal of DHS right now is to keep people in detention by any means, even where immigration judges have ruled that they are not a public danger or flight risk.” And, she said, “…baseless gang allegations are being used against people without real evidence supporting them.” Many other detainees have been denied bond. Often detainees are sent to prisons far from their homes in New York, making them difficult to locate by their own attorneys.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)