Philadelphia Attorney Sues Trump Administration, Kristi Noem, and DHS Over Detention of Biden-Era Asylum Seekers

PHILADELPHIA, PA, UNITED STATES, January 16, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- A Philadelphia-based attorney has sued the Trump Administration, including Kristi Noem, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, challenging immigration enforcement policies that have resulted in the targeting and re-detention of Biden-era asylum seekers at the Pike County Correctional Facility, many of whom are being held without access to bond or meaningful judicial review.

The lawsuit, Rojas v. Warden, Pike County Correctional Center et al., No. 3:26-cv-00073-PJC, pending in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, arises from the government’s treatment of individuals who lawfully sought asylum, passed credible-fear screenings, were released by DHS into the interior of the United States, and complied with all conditions while awaiting adjudication of their asylum applications—only to later be re-detained in the interior following a shift in federal enforcement priorities and a series of Immigration Board decisions that, according to the filing, have functioned to categorically approve the administration’s detention agenda and foreclose meaningful custody review.

According to the petition, DHS has adopted a detention framework that treats these previously released asylum seekers as “applicants for admission” subject to mandatory detention, a classification that Immigration Judges have been instructed to treat as stripping them of jurisdiction to conduct bond hearings. The result, the lawsuit alleges, is a system in which individuals are detained for months without any neutral adjudicator authorized to assess flight risk, danger, or the necessity of continued confinement.

“This case is about promises made and then broken,” said attorney Robert C. Barchiesi, II. “Many of these individuals were encouraged to seek asylum, followed the process the government laid out, built lives here, and complied with every condition. They are now being pulled out of their communities and jailed without any meaningful review, not because of who they are, but because political winds shifted. Regardless of where you stand politically, denying people any forum to challenge their detention should concern everyone.”

The litigation further challenges what it describes as a broader administrative effort to insulate detention decisions from judicial oversight. The filing alleges that recent changes within the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR)—including mass hiring, reassignment, and removal of Immigration Judges—have created an adjudicatory environment in which judges face institutional pressure to adhere to the administration’s enforcement agenda or risk adverse employment consequences. As applied, the suit contends, this has produced a detention regime in which meaningful custody review is effectively unavailable.

Barchiesi recently participated in nationally recognized federal litigation challenging similar detention practices, in Lazaro Maldonado Bautista v. Ernesto Santacruz Jr., 5:25-cv-01873 (C.D. Cal.), in which he provided written testimony addressing what he described as flagrant violations of due process arising from the government’s practice of detaining long-term residents without bond. That litigation resulted in nationwide class certification and injunctive relief barring certain categories of detention without bond.

While the prior nationwide case focused on individuals who had never been encountered or processed by immigration authorities, the Pennsylvania action seeks to extend judicial scrutiny to Biden-era asylum seekers—individuals who were affirmatively processed, released, and authorized to remain in the United States while their asylum applications were pending.

“This lawsuit is intended to address the next wave,” Barchiesi said. “People who did everything the government asked of them and are now being detained without bond, without hearings, and without courts empowered to intervene. That is not how due process is supposed to function in this country.”

Robert Barchiesi
Barchiesi Law PLLC
+1 215-543-6788
email us here

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