Until last year, suing the federal government was not part of Utah immigration attorney Adam Crayk’s daily routine. Now, his firm has filed about 20 habeas corpus petitions, alleging that the government is detaining someone in violation of the law.
Attorneys around the country are using these petitions to get bond hearings — and bond — for clients who would otherwise be kept in detention until their immigration court hearings.
“I gotta knock on wood,” Crayk said. “We haven't lost a habeas petition yet.”
The petitions are time-consuming for attorneys, so they’re expensive for clients. Crayk’s firm charges from $12,000 to $18,000.
The concept of habeas corpus, Latin for “produce the body,” is as fundamental to United States law as many rights in the Bill of Rights, said Matthew Tokson, professor at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law. It forces the government to prove it has a legal reason to keep someone detained.
“It was a cherished right in England,” he said.
That’s why the Founding Fathers included the Suspension Clause in the U.S. Constitution, which says that the writ of habeas corpus “shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
It’s traditionally been more common for habeas petitions to be filed after someone is convicted and has exhausted other legal options, Tokson said. People can also use it to challenge their incarceration before they’re convicted.
This was the case with the initial suspect in Salt Lake City’s No King’s protest shooting, Arturo Gamboa, who was held in jail without charges after he brought a gun to the march in June 2025. At a Dec. 9, 2025, press conference, Gamboa’s attorney, Greg Skordas, said he filed the first habeas petition in his 43-year career, and Gamboa was released shortly after.
The massive increase in habeas petitions on behalf of immigrants follows a September 2025 ruling by the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals. The ruling found that immigration judges do not have the authority to hear bond requests or grant bond for immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally.
This is a shift from a longstanding practice that allowed immigrants with deep ties to the community to be eligible for bond.
People who entered legally, like those who overstayed a visa, can still get bond hearings. Those who entered without inspection are in a tough spot, Crayk said.
“The only way you get the bond hearing is if you file a habeas and force the immigration judge to conduct a bond hearing based on the constitutional violations that have basically come to light every single day now,” he said.
The habeas petition is filed in federal court. A federal judge can deny the petition, approve bond directly or order a bond hearing with an immigration judge.
Over 20,000 habeas petitions have been filed in immigration cases nationwide between January 2025 and this week, according to ProPublica’s habeas case tracker — more than under the previous three presidential administrations combined.
The cases are piling up. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told a Senate committee Feb. 12 that U.S. Attorney staff in his state are “drowning under a flood of habeas corpus petitions.”
Nine habeas cases have been filed in Utah since the start of last year, according to Habeas Dockets. Habeas petitions are submitted in the state where the individual is detained, and Utah does not have an immigration detention center.
Northern Utah jails that hold immigration detainees do so for two or three days, while the Washington County Jail averages six days. Immigration officials often move quickly to transfer detainees out of state, Crayk said, so he’s filed cases in a half-dozen other states.
Habeas petitions require a big lift. Crayk said learning to file them in immigration cases was “baptism by fire.”
For each petition, attorneys make their case in federal court, sometimes flying to other states to do so in person. In locations where they are not licensed, attorneys must apply to practice pro hac vice. They also have to keep up with changing court rulings.
“You're literally filing a lawsuit against the federal government, right?” Crayk said. “So we're naming Pam Bondi, we're naming Kristi Noem, we're naming the immigration, the head of immigration, Todd Lyons.”
Once someone is granted bond, they have to pay it. Immigration bonds typically start at $1,500 but can be much higher.
Hiring an attorney for a habeas petition is also not an option for everyone.
“We have funded two of them, just because we were so mad,” Crayk said. “So we did two for nothing.”
But if they tried to help everyone pro bono, the firm would fall apart, he said. Immigrants who can afford it pay for their own legal help.
“There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, thousands, who are incarcerated, who don't have criminal history, who would absolutely, depending on where they're incarcerated, win a habeas petition,” Crayk said. “But because they cannot get there and they cannot find counsel, they give up” and sign a removal order, he said.
Despite the success so far, Crayk worries habeas petitions will get harder to win.
Judges disagree over whether to deny bond hearings to immigrants who entered illegally but have lived in the U.S. for a long time. Earlier in February, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Trump policy. This week, a federal judge in California ruled the opposite.
Crayk plans to cite the California judge’s ruling when he argues cases in that circuit, but he thinks more detainees will be sent to the Fifth Circuit.
“What I'm really worried about now is they're going to try and overwhelmingly load the facilities in Texas, because they now know that the habeas petitions in Texas are going to fail,” he said.
A separate split is playing out among the few habeas cases decided in the District of Utah. In recent decisions, federal Judge Tena Campbell disagreed with the September ruling that allows the government to hold without bond anyone who entered the country illegally, while Judge Howard Nielson upheld it.
“If you file a habeas and you end up with Judge Nielson versus Judge Campbell, you're in trouble, which makes it a really difficult proposition,” Crayk said.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
Editor’s note: KUER is a licensee of the University of Utah but operates as an editorially independent news organization.
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps, funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
