Attorney’s fees — a hidden cost of Trump’s mass immigrant detention agenda

MANHATTAN (CN) — On Jan. 15, at the height of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, a Venezuelan family of six was detained by federal immigration authorities who raided their St. Paul home at gunpoint on unfounded claims the family was undocumented and its patriarch, Joel Campos, was a narcotics trafficker.All six, including Campos’ 12-year-old son Santiago, were flown to Texas the next day and split between two detention centers. Santiago, who has asthma, said he was denied access to his inhaler. The family told local news stations they slept on the floor without access to food or a shower.Immigration and Customs Enforcement claimed it had a warrant to storm the Campos residence. But it never produced one, even when pressed by a federal judge, who wound up releasing the family weeks later as a result. In court filings, a government attorney reportedly apologized to the family, who said they were in the country legally and had state-issued IDs to prove it.The judge ordered the government to pay $17,505 in attorney’s fees — restitution for the family needing to defend themselves in court against the unlawful arrests.It’s part of an emerging trend amid the Trump administration’s unprecedented immigrant detention campaign. Courthouse News has identified 97 habeas corpus cases throughout 2026 in which the government has been ordered to pay the legal fees of immigrants it illegally detained, adding up to more than $1.1 million in total.The legal concept is a novel one. The payments are being granted pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act, a 1980 law that allows parties to collect attorney’s fees when they win a civil case against the government. But it wasn’t until the second Trump administration — during the ongoing explosion of immigration arrests, and subsequent habeas corpus petitions arguing the detentions are illegal — that the EAJA has been applied to immigration cases.In May, a federal judge awarded more than $39,600 in EAJA attorney’s fees to Valentina De Los Angeles Tiapa Moreno, a Venezuelan woman whom the government tried to deport after she witnessed ICE shoot her cousin through a closed door in Minnesota. As it turned out, the agency was after someone else entirely, but agents nonetheless stormed their home with tear gas, arrested Moreno and shipped her to a detention facility in New Mexico.“If a reasonable basis for any of the actions described above exists — and the court is doubtful — respondents have failed to articulate it,” wrote U.S. District Judge Margaret Strickland, a Joe Biden appointee in New Mexico, in granting the EAJA motion, which was among the largest of 2026.Another sizable sum came out of the Western District of Washington, where a judge granted more than $41,800 to Daixon Jose Ramirez Tesara, a Venezuelan asylum seeker who was unlawfully detained at an immigration check-in.That district, home to Seattle’s federal courthouse, has accounted for the most attorney’s fees awarded to immigrant habeas petitioners this year. It’s not close — of the at least $1.13 million awarded nationwide this year, judges in the Western District of Washington have granted more than $441,000 of that through 35 different cases. The next highest district is New Mexico, which granted about $95,000, followed by the Central District of California with nearly $86,000.Seattle-based immigration attorney Matt Adams, who was on Tesara’s legal team, said his district got a head start on the others around the country. His firm, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, filed a class action against the government last March, challenging its mandatory detention policy for noncitizens just months into President Donald Trump’s second term.“Our class action here predated other litigation,” Adams told Courthouse News.The class of immigrant detainees won summary judgment in September 2025, when a federal judge ruled they were unlawfully denied bond hearings. The Ninth Circuit upheld that ruling last week.In order to qualify for EAJA fees, a party needs to not only win their case, but also prove that the government’s position was not a “substantially justified” one. Adams’ class action gave habeas petitioners in his district the legal ammunition to prove that these bondless detentions are anything but.Still, winning EAJA fees can be a lengthy process, which explains why the Western District of Washington’s head start was so impactful. A petitioner must first win a final judgment in their favor, then wait 60 days to give the government a chance to appeal it. Then, and only then, can the petitioner make a formal motion for EAJA fees, kickstarting another back and forth with the government over how much time the prevailing attorneys spent on the case and how much that time is worth.It’s not for every petitioner, Adams explained. Many immigrant habeas cases end after the person is released from ICE custody on a temporary restraining order.“In that situation, they would most likely not qualify for EAJA fees because they don’t have a final judgment,” he said. “And then in other cases, they just decide it’s not worth their time to pursue it.”Two circuits have barred the EAJA’s application to immigrant habeas cases altogether. The Fourth Circuit, which includes Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas, and the Fifth Circuit, which includes Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, each found that these cases are not the kind of civil actions the EAJA was designed to accommodate.But the Second, Third and Tenth Circuits have decided otherwise, setting up a circuit split that the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on in the coming months. A Department of Justice spokesperson said in a statement the agency is pleased that the high court will be judging the issue.“We believe the Fourth and Fifth Circuits decided this issue correctly,” it said.Emma Winger, deputy legal director of the American Immigration Council, disagrees.“The statute actually is pretty straightforward,” she told Courthouse News. “Habeas is plainly a civil action. Immigration cases are civil. They don’t come with all the constitutional protections that come for folks who are facing criminal proceedings. It’s indisputably civil.”The Supreme Court’s impending decision could make it easier for jailed immigrants in unfriendly circuits to retain costly attorneys through EAJA. If the conservative-dominated court sides with the Fourth and Fifth Circuits, however, it will only become tougher for those in ICE custody to challenge their detentions, now with one fewer financial tool in the shed.Winger notes that the EAJA fees, while currently on the rise, are also a drop in the bucket when compared with the rest of ICE’s massive annual budget.“These fees pale in comparison to the cost of actually detaining somebody,” she said. “In terms of expense to the government, the most dramatic cost is just the detention itself.”When reached for comment, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, declined to comment on any specifics of the EAJA or the $1.1 million in legal fees ordered to immigrant habeas petitioners so far this year. Instead, a department spokesperson simply told Courthouse News that “no lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States.”Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads