What is a habeas corpus petition?

Federal courts in New York have seen a sharp rise in habeas corpus petition filings. The petitions have become one of the only options for immigrants detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be released from detention.

Since September 2025, filings have gone up over 1,500% in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. Immigrants filed as many habeas corpus petitions through Feb. 27, 2026, as they had for all of 2025. 

The increase follows a national trend, with more habeas cases filed in the first 13 months of Trump’s second administration than in the previous three administrations combined, ProPublica reports.

Many immigrants detained by ICE in Central New York file petitions in the court’s Western District — based in Buffalo and Rochester — because they are held in the Batavia Detention Center, the largest immigration detention facility in New York. Federal courts in the Western District have jurisdiction over a 17-county region that spans from Erie County in the west to Chemung County in the east. 

In habeas corpus petitions, immigrants make the argument they are being held unlawfully by the government and deserve to have a bond hearing or immediately be released. For many, it is their only chance to go home.

A surge in Western New York 

With roughly 700 beds, the Batavia Detention Center in Western New York is the largest immigration detention facility in the state, sitting just a couple of hours from Syracuse. Since early 2025, it has been filling steadily with men from across New York, including dozens transported from Central New York.

Inside, detainees describe cramped and crowded sleeping areas, with limited access to showers. Some have been there for months. 

The volume of habeas filings in the past few months is unlike anything the federal courts in New York have seen. 

In all of 2025, 225 habeas corpus petitions were filed in the Western District of New York, which covers Buffalo, Rochester and the surrounding region. By Feb. 27, 2026, that annual total had already been surpassed. Nearly 500 petitions have been filed in the Western District so far this year.

Matthew Borowski, a Buffalo-based immigration attorney, said he is filing almost 30 petitions a week.

In a Law.com article, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford of the Western District warned that the influx is becoming unsustainable. 

Wolford said the court received 347 habeas petitions over a six-month period — a 1,019% increase compared to the previous six months.

“We are already a congested court with some of the busiest dockets in the country,” she said, noting that the cases often require immediate attention and demand judges to set aside other work.

Central Current contacted Wolford’s clerks, who requested a written request for comment. Wolford did not respond.

The Northern District of New York — which covers Syracuse — has seen only a fraction of that volume: nearly 30 filings so far in 2026 and just two in 2025. Habeas corpus petitions are typically filed where a person is detained, and capacity in the Northern District is limited. 

One of the few facilities in the district is the Broome County jail in Binghamton, which can only hold about 50 people. 

What is a habeas corpus petition?

The phrase habeas corpus is Latin for “you shall have the body.” The principle is simple: the government must justify why it is detaining someone. It traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215 and is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

For centuries, habeas corpus has served as a mechanism for courts to step in when other legal checks have failed, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

That is still how it is being used today, though the context has changed.

In the current immigration system, detained immigrants are increasingly filing these petitions in federal court to argue they are being held without legal justification — denied bond hearings and their constitutional right to due process. Their attorneys argue the government has no legal basis to keep them detained while their immigration cases proceed. 

For these immigrants, a habeas petition can determine their future in the United States.

A new legal interpretation that reshaped ICE detention

Until last summer, there was a key difference between two types of immigration cases. People apprehended at the border were subject to mandatory detention, with limited access to bond hearings. But immigrants who had entered the country without authorization but were not caught at the border — known as “interior” cases — had a clear legal pathway: appear before an immigration judge and request release on bond while their case was decided.

That distinction was effectively erased in September 2025. Following a ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals, a policy shift reclassified “interior” cases.

Under the new interpretation, someone who has been living in the country for years is now treated the same as someone detained at the border last week, meaning they can be held without the opportunity for a bond hearing.

Asylum seekers were swept into the change as well. People who had entered the country, filed for asylum and been living in their communities while awaiting a court date suddenly found themselves detained with no path forward.

The ruling shut down the typical legal pathway to release, leaving habeas corpus petitions as one of the only options remaining.

How the courts are responding 

In some cases, judges have ordered the immediate release of a detainee. More often, they send the case back to immigration court with the instruction to provide a bond hearing.

“It is overwhelmingly just sending people back to do the thing that they should have gotten anyway,” said Lauren DesRosiers, director of the immigration law clinic at Albany Law School.

Paul O’Dwyer, a New York City-based immigration attorney who has represented several immigrants who filed habeas corpus petitions in Western New York, said the federal courts have pushed back “quite vehemently” against the idea that immigrants can be detained indefinitely without access to release proceedings.

“Judges have been very sympathetic to the arguments that people are making about the due process rights of people who are being snapped up and put in detention,” he said. 

O’Dwyer describes his clients as people with deep roots in their communities who have spent their lives building a life in this country. 

“They have families here, have businesses, they pay taxes,” O’Dwyer said. “And not only are they detaining them, but they’re detaining them and saying they’re not eligible to ever be released.”

Even when a habeas petition succeeds, the process takes a toll. The effect is a compounding strain — on federal courts, attorneys, immigrants and their families.

One habeas petitioner, Rafael, spent four months detained in the Broome County jail before his mother and sister learned from social media how to file a habeas corpus petition on his behalf. A judge ordered his release last February. 

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