Federal Appeals Court Upholds Trump Administration’s Policy of Mass Detention Without Bond

In a major legal victory for the Trump administration, a federal appeals court has ruled that the government can detain undocumented foreigners without offering them bond hearings, regardless of how long they have lived in the United States.The 2-1 decision late Friday by the conservative-leaning 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns lower court rulings and validates the administration’s reinterpretation of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The ruling effectively allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement to indefinitely detain individuals in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi while deportation proceedings move forward, denying them the opportunity to ask a judge for release.Attorney General Pam Bondi applauded the ruling, calling it a “significant blow against activist judges who have been undermining our efforts to make America safe again at every turn. We will continue vindicating President Trump’s law and order agenda in courtrooms across the country.”Writing for the majority, Judge Edith Jones, a Reagan appointee, joined by Trump appointee Judge Kyle Duncan, argued that the executive branch has the authority to change how it enforces existing laws.“The text says what it says, regardless of the decisions of prior Administrations,” Judge Jones wrote. “In any event, that prior Administrations decided to use less than their full enforcement authority … does not mean they lacked the authority to do more.”The decision marks a sharp pivot from decades of precedent. Previously, foreigners apprehended in the American interior — unlike those caught at the border — were generally eligible for bond hearings where they could argue they were not flight risks or dangers to the community.Under the Trump administration’s new policy, these individuals are now classified as “applicants for admission” subject to mandatory detention.Judge Dana Douglas, a Biden appointee, issued a strong dissent, warning that the ruling ignores historical legal distinctions and could impact millions of people.“The government today asserts the authority and mandate to detain millions of noncitizens in the interior, some of them present here for decades, on the same terms as if they were apprehended at the border,” Judge Douglas wrote. “No matter that this newly discovered mandate arrives without historical precedent, and in the teeth of one of the core distinctions of immigration law.”Judge Douglas further criticized the majority for failing to grasp the gravity of indefinite detention without recourse.“The majority seems to be unable to imagine what it might mean to be detained within the United States without the appropriate proof of admissibility, and, without a bond hearing, to require the services of a federal habeas corpus lawyer to show that one is entitled to release and deserves to see the outside of a detention center again,” she wrote.She added that the opinion appeared “based on little more than an apparent conviction that Congress must have wanted these noncitizens detained — some of them the spouses, mothers, fathers, and grandparents of American citizens.”With other appeals courts across the country currently examining the policy, the issue is expected to eventually reach the Supreme Court.

Federal Appeals Court Upholds Trump Administration’s Policy of Mass Detention Without Bond

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