In one case, U.S. District Judge Tiffany Cartwright ordered the release of Robert Sidhe, a Kenyan asylum applicant and University of Washington Medical Center staffer who was arrested in August while driving to his Lynnwood home. The government had known about Sidhe for years. He had applied for asylum in 2023, held a work permit and had no criminal history, according to court filings.

Nine days before his arrest, Sidhe attended a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services appointment to provide biometrics for his application. His lawyers said officials gave no indication he would be detained. Cartwright noted that he had no advance notice or opportunity to make his case before losing his freedom.

The ruling comes amid a broader increase in immigration arrests under President Donald Trump’s enforcement crackdown. ICE arrests people without warning in settings including traffic stops, parking lots and agency check-ins. Federal courts around the country have issued thousands of rulings finding due process violations in immigration cases, said Andrea Sáenz, a former member of the Board of Immigration Appeals and a senior attorney at Co-Counsel NYC.

The Fifth Amendment’s due process protections apply to noncitizens, including people who entered the country unlawfully, said Elizabeth Porter, a University of Washington constitutional law professor. A 2001 Supreme Court decision established that principle, though the level of protection can depend on a person’s status and circumstances. Appeals involving the latest disputes have not yet produced final rulings from higher courts, Sáenz said.

In Sidhe’s case, the government argued that he could seek release at a later bond hearing. His attorneys countered that a hearing after an arrest would not undo the harm of detaining a law-abiding asylum applicant without an individualized assessment of flight risk, danger or humanitarian concerns. They also said Sidhe developed extremely high blood pressure and stroke-like symptoms at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma.

Cartwright ordered a temporary release. Sidhe remains in removal proceedings, with a preliminary immigration-court hearing scheduled for early next year. His lawyers had argued that people should have a chance to appear before a neutral decision-maker before being arrested. The government responded that officers could not arrange such a hearing during a traffic stop.

A separate case involved a 40-year-old construction business owner who had lived in the United States since age 3. He was arrested while picking up supplies at a Home Depot and taken to the Tacoma detention center. His removal proceedings had been terminated in 2012, and the government had allowed him to hold a work permit for 16 years.

U.S. District Judge David Estudillo ordered his release in September after finding that an immigration judge had not given a meaningful explanation for denying bond or adequately considered more than 140 pages of evidence, including the birth certificates of the man’s four U.S.-citizen children. The immigration judge cited the possibility that removal proceedings could take years as a reason to view him as a flight risk. Estudillo called that reasoning “comical if it were not for the seriousness of the issues involved.”

The disputes also involve the use of arrest warrants. ICE generally uses administrative warrants approved within the agency for arrests in public places; judicial warrants are required for agents to enter private property without consent. Sáenz said officers are supposed to obtain an administrative warrant before an arrest, except when a person is likely to flee, though they may provide it afterward. Some judges have ordered releases after warrantless arrests, while others have accepted paperwork completed later, she said.

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown joined 21 other attorneys general this month in filing a brief in a federal appeals court case challenging warrantless arrests.

Access to bond is another contested issue. The Trump administration has argued that many immigrants who entered the country unlawfully are not eligible for bond while their cases proceed. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Washington, ruled in July against the administration’s interpretation. The federal government has taken its effort to eliminate bond for this group to the Supreme Court, which is expected to hear a related case early next year.

Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said detained immigrants in Western Washington have reported that their bond requests were denied without genuine consideration. The Supreme Court case could resolve the bond dispute, he said. Meanwhile, the district court rulings show how access to a meaningful hearing can determine whether people remain in detention while their immigration cases continue.