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570 ICE Detainees Filed for Release in Mississippi. One Judge Decided None.

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One Federal Judge Has Stalled Every ICE Detention Challenge in Mississippi

More than 570 immigrant detainees have filed habeas corpus petitions in the Southern District of Mississippi since last fall, according to data from the nonprofit Habeas Dockets. Not one has been decided on its merits.

U.S. District Court Judge David Bramlette III, who handles all habeas corpus petitions from ICE detainees in Mississippi, has not ruled on the substance of a single case since at least October 2025. He has dismissed roughly 18 on procedural grounds. The rest remain pending, leaving hundreds of people in detention without any court decision on whether their imprisonment is constitutional.

570+ habeas corpus petitions filed in Judge Bramlette’s court in eight months. Zero decided on the merits.

Federal judges in other circuits have improvised new procedures to manage the surge in ICE detention challenges. Judge Bramlette has not adopted any similar measures.

Adams County Holds One of the Nation’s Largest ICE Detention Centers

The Southern District of Mississippi encompasses Adams County, home to one of the largest ICE detention facilities in the country. That geography puts Judge Bramlette at the center of a constitutional crisis affecting hundreds of people.

Before July 2025, most immigrants who had lived in the United States for years were allowed to argue for bond if ICE arrested them. The Trump administration changed that last summer, detaining people who had previously been free to live and work in their communities while their immigration cases proceeded. Habeas corpus became one of the only remaining legal tools for challenging that detention.

Habeas corpus allows a person to argue that the government lacks a legal basis to hold them. Many ICE detainees contend they are at minimum entitled to bond hearings. Others argue that detention beyond six months without a hearing constitutes indefinite detention, which federal courts have found unconstitutional in other contexts.

A Father of Eight Has Waited More Than Eight Months for a Ruling

Alexi Canas, a native of El Salvador who had lived in Maryland for 30 years, was arrested by ICE in March 2025. He is the father of eight children. An immigration judge granted him protection from deportation. Despite that ruling, Canas spent about seven months in detention before filing a habeas petition in October 2025. As of the Mississippi Today report published June 30, 2026, his case remains undecided.

Some detainees who filed petitions have since been deported, their cases rendered moot before a judge ever ruled. Others have been held for a year or longer in prison-like conditions while their petitions sit idle.

What You Can Do Now

  1. Contact the Senate Judiciary Committee at (202) 224-5225 and ask members to investigate the backlog in the Southern District of Mississippi. Judicial accountability over habeas corpus processing is within congressional oversight authority.

  2. Call your U.S. representative at (202) 225-3121 and ask them to request a Government Accountability Office review of ICE habeas corpus petition processing times by district. Frame it as a constitutional due process issue, not a partisan one.

  3. Contact the American Immigration Lawyers Association at (202) 507-7600 or aila.org to connect detained individuals in Mississippi with legal representation. Detainees without lawyers are far less likely to have petitions processed.

  4. Submit a public comment to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts through uscourts.gov/contact requesting published data on habeas corpus resolution times by district. Transparency on processing delays is a first step toward accountability.

Sources

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