A federal judge in Colorado warned the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday against raising arguments that she and other judges have repeatedly rejected in cases challenging the lawfulness of immigration detentions.

In a Jan. 26 order finding the government is wrongfully detaining a Cuban national without a bond hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney telegraphed her frustration with the Justice Department’s adherence to the same unsuccessful arguments advanced in the deluge of immigration-related challenges over the past year.

“Separately, the Court offers a word of caution: Respondents’ counsel is (or should be) well aware of the Court’s limited resources — indeed, the District of Colorado has already received over 40 immigration-related actions filed since the beginning of the year, many of which require prompt attention,” she wrote. “These actions have a significant impact on the Court’s docket, as it undoubtably has on Respondents’ office which is called upon to respond to such actions.”

The department “should take heed that there is no benefit in re-litigating an argument that this Court has already rejected absent a change in controlling law,” continued Sweeney, a Joe Biden appointee. “Respondents are thus cautioned to avoid raising meritless arguments with the Court — particularly when the most fundamental right to all, the right to be ‘(free) from imprisonment,’ is at stake.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Colorado, which represents the government in such cases, declined to comment on Sweeney’s order.

For much of the past year, the government has asserted broad authority to detain people in immigration custody without providing a hearing to evaluate their suitability for release. Judges across the country have repeatedly rejected that assertion, although the issue has not made its way up to most circuit courts or the U.S. Supreme Court, where a ruling would set precedent for future cases.

Jason R. Dunn, the U.S. attorney for Colorado during the first Trump administration, said he has not been closely following immigration-related cases. However, if he had seen Sweeney’s admonition during his time leading the office, “my initial thought is that I would tell them to reference those arguments and the court’s footnote, perhaps in a footnote of their own, to preserve them for appeal without restating them every time.”

On the same day as Sweeney’s ruling, eight more challenges to immigration detention were filed in Colorado’s federal trial court. POLITICO also reported that day about judges’ increasing alarm at the government’s tactics in arresting and detaining people.

“There has been an undeniable move by the Government in the past month to defy court orders or at least to stretch the legal process to the breaking point in an attempt to deny noncitizens their due process rights,” wrote U.S. District Court Senior Judge Michael J. Davis of Minnesota over the weekend. 

In Colorado, judges’ criticism of the government has been more muted, but with occasional flashes of frustration.

On Tuesday, for example, U.S. District Court Judge Nina Y. Wang noted the U.S. Attorney’s Office had not even acknowledged a recent decision of hers that rejected the government’s identical reasoning.

Sweeney, in her same order from Monday, also slammed the government’s attorney for arguing she could not consider the petitioner’s challenge to his detention, which ran contrary to her previous rulings.

“Despite using three full pages in support of their unavailing and inapplicable arguments, Respondents fail to acknowledge (or perhaps do not care to grapple with) the fact that this Court has already considered and rejected as ‘borderline frivolous’ (those) jurisdictional challenges,” Sweeney wrote.

A few days prior, U.S. District Court Judge S. Kato Crews issued a decision with the less-common finding that the government was properly detaining a man without a bond hearing. However, Crews was nonetheless disturbed at the “haphazard and inconsistent actions” of immigration authorities, taken “without due care for proper procedure.”

“While Respondents’ conduct may comport with the bare minimum due process,” he wrote, “Respondents should strive for more particularly where, as here, individual life and liberty interests are at stake.”