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A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the Trump administration’s mass detention policy, which allows illegal immigrants to be detained without bail.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled 2-1 that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can legally deny bond hearings to immigrants arrested nationwide under the Constitution and federal immigration law.
Attorney General Pam Bondi responded to the ruling by saying the Department of Justice (DOJ) “secured another crucial legal victory” in support of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
“The Fifth Circuit just detained illegal aliens who can legitimately be detained without bail, a significant blow against activist judges who have been undermining our efforts to make America safe again at all times,” he wrote in
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A federal appeals court upheld the Department of Homeland Security’s authority to detain illegal aliens without bond hearings, a ruling that Attorney General Pam Bondi called a major legal victory for the Trump administration. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Circuit Judge Edith H. Jones wrote in the majority opinion that “unadmitted aliens detained anywhere in the United States are not eligible to be released on bond, regardless of how long they have resided within the United States.”
Many illegal immigrants who were not previously apprehended at the border were given the opportunity to request a bail hearing as their cases progressed, and those without criminal records who were not considered a flight risk were often granted bail.
“Just because previous administrations chose to use less than their full enforcement authority under” the law “does not mean they lacked the authority to do more,” Jones wrote.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that federal law allows illegal immigrants to be detained without bail, a decision praised by Attorney General Pam Bondi. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
In a dissenting brief, Circuit Judge Dana M. Douglas said that members of Congress who passed the Immigration and Nationality Act about 30 years ago “would be surprised to learn that it also required the detention without bail of two million people.”
Douglas noted that some of the people detained are “the spouses, mothers, fathers and grandparents of American citizens.”
The ruling arises from two separate cases filed last year against the Trump administration, both involving Mexican citizens who had lived in the United States for more than a decade and were not considered flight risks, according to their lawyers.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that federal law allows the Department of Homeland Security to deny bond hearings to illegal immigrants arrested across the country, siding with the Trump administration’s law enforcement policy. (@ICE via X)
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Although they had no criminal record, both were jailed for months last year before a lower Texas court granted them bail last October.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.