U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One, as he departs for Scotland, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., July 25, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that President Donald Trump's administration unlawfully arrested and detained hundreds of people across the country as part of its immigration crackdown, and ordered them to be released by November 21.

CNN host Boris Sanchez reported Wednesday that the decision by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings (an appointee of former President Joe Biden) was a "major blow" to Trump's mass deportation efforts, while reporter Whitney Wild described the ruling was an "enormous win" for plaintiffs' attorneys suing the administration. She observed that Judge Cummings pointed out that more than 600 people detained across the country "have no deportation orders" and "no criminal history."

"This more practically applies to all 3,000 people who are who have been arrested by ICE and Customs and Border [Protection] between June and October," Wild said. "But most practically speaking, it applies to 615 people who are currently in custody all across the country."

According to Wild, plaintiffs' attorneys believe roughly 1,100 immigrants "simply left voluntarily after they were placed in custody because they just they gave up on their immigration status fight and chose to leave the United States." However, attorney Mark Fleming told CNN affiliate WLS that the ruling proved their argument that a bulk of the administration's arrests of immigrants in Chicago, Illinois this summer and fall — under the direction of Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino — were illegal.

"For the last two months, the terrorizing of our neighborhoods, the brutalizing of people here has all been unlawful," Fleming said. "That's what it's going to show. It's going to show that all of this, all of the tactics of Mr. Bovino, all of the tactics of ICE have been unlawful in the vast, vast majority of arrests."

So far, the Department of Homeland Security has not yet said if it will appeal Judge Cummings' decision to the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, though Fleming told WLS that he understood that the Department of Justice was planning to consult with Solicitor General D. John Sauer (one of Trump's former personal attorneys) about whether to file an appeal. However, Wild reported that the ruling may potentially have nationwide implications.

"More broadly, the question is, what does this mean for cases all across the country?" Wild said. "... The attorney for the ACLU told me that she believes that there are other cases across the country that are similar. And so you will start to see more cases end up just like this, with judges simply saying that these people who are in custody, it's completely improper."

Watch the segment below:

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