New York State DMV to suspend services for multiple days to update technology

There are a rapidly growing number of immigrants detained on Long Island and across the country who’ve successfully convinced judges the government jailed them illegally, bringing fresh attention to a centuries-old legal maneuver that’s become a lifeline for many swept up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Between Nov. 1 and Feb. 10, 108 people filed these petitions in the Eastern District — after only 19 in the first 10 months of last year, according to a Newsday analysis of federal court records.

Judges in the district, which covers Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island, have freed the petitioner in 80 of the 95 cases where they have issued decisions, the analysis showed. The other cases are ongoing or were transferred to other courts.

Josefa Velásquez and Anastasia Valeeva report in NEWSDAY that nationwide, people have filed more than 19,000 habeas petitions since the start of 2025, more than three-quarters of them since November.

"The explosion of habeas cases is remarkable," said Peter Markowitz, an immigration law professor at Cardozo School of Law in New York City.

Habeas corpus, Latin for "produce the body," is one of the oldest tools in America’s legal system, giving judges the power to weigh whether someone’s detention is legal. So why the explosion?

The U.S. Justice Department last fall expanded use of a law allowing mandatory detention of immigrants without a bond hearing if they entered outside an official entry point, even if it was years or decades prior. Previous administrations, including during Trump’s first term, didn’t typically jail these people without additional reason, such as criminal charges against them.

More than 5,236 people had been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York City and surrounding suburbs, including Nassau and Suffolk counties, between Jan. 1 and Oct. 15, 2025, according to federal immigration data published by the Deportation Data Project research group and analyzed by Newsday.

ICE released data this month showing that 70,766 people were in detention nationwide, and have said nearly 3 million people had already been removed from the country. This means that fewer than 1% of people detained by ICE have been able to file petitions challenging their apprehension and jailing.

Immigrants targeted for deportation had cases heard in a dedicated immigration court, but the administration’s new policy effectively cut the judges there out of the bond hearing process. Lawyers for these men and women suddenly found themselves unable to protest their detentions in immigration court, so they turned to federal court.

Habeas corpus petitions have proved effective in federal court, experts told Newsday, since their sole intent is to challenge a person’s jailing by the government, and the administration is denying bond hearings or individual review of people’s cases.

***

Starting this afternoon, New York State Department of Motor Vehicles will suspend in-person, online and phone services for several days as it replaces its outdated technology systems. Nicholas Grasso reports in NEWSDAY that as of 2 p.m. today, DMV locations across Long Island and the state will close their doors, according to a department news release.

Why is the DMV closing?

The DMV must halt services to install and test the new software that has been developed over the past two years, the department said. The upgraded system will make routine transactions at the DMV "more efficient for our staff and for customers alike," Walter McClure, the department's director of public information, told Newsday.

How will I be affected by the service shutdown?

New Yorkers must wait until Wednesday to perform any transaction at the DMV, such as renewing a license or registering a vehicle. Even completing a change of address, retrieving a driving record and other tasks drivers...