The U.S. attorney’s office for Washington’s Western District says it can no longer defend many detained immigrants’ habeas cases because filings are arriving faster than its lawyers can handle them, straining other civil litigation as well.

In an October 26 letter to Chief U.S. District Judge David Estudillo, acting U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd said each petition can require status reports, briefs, motions and hearings, consuming substantial prosecutor time.

To preserve resources, the office will stop taking responsibility for defending respondents in many cases; if no government attorney appears within seven court days of a scheduling order, judges may decide a petition based only on the detainee’s submissions.

The office also said it would not process cases or relay court communications in matters it does not defend, and judges may send release orders directly to the Northwest ICE Processing Center.

The surge followed a Trump administration policy change requiring detained immigrants—including people accused of no violence—to seek release through federal habeas petitions rather than receive immediate relief through the immigration system.

ProPublica data cited in the article show nearly 100,000 immigration habeas cases have been filed in federal district courts since January 2025, including about 2,000 in Washington’s Western District by early November 2026.

Judges have released many detainees, and in a Seattle case Judge Kymberly Evanson said the government forfeited its chance to challenge a petition by failing to respond.

The issue surfaced in Baljit Singh’s case: an asylum seeker from India detained after accidentally reaching a Canadian border exit during a state-park visit, Singh was ordered released within 24 hours after Judge Tiffany M. Cartwright deemed his petition “intentionally unopposed.”

The dispute sits within a broader fight over detention without bond hearings, with the U.S. Supreme Court considering whether immigrants contesting deportation are entitled to hearings; most federal appeals courts have rejected the policy, while the Fifth and Eighth Circuits have upheld it.

Floyd’s leadership is itself disputed: after Attorney General Todd Blanche fired Roger Rogoff, a federal judge ruled Rogoff was the rightful officeholder, and the government appealed, leaving both men claiming the Seattle post without Senate confirmation.

The staffing crunch comes amid a wider Justice Department exodus: the article says more than 10,000 federal lawyers have left government since early 2025 and the department has lost 21% of its attorneys.

In a 60 Minutes interview, Trump said his deportation policy was “too tough,” saying it had both helped and hurt Republicans in the midterm elections and affected people who had jobs but had entered the country illegally.