Ninth Circuit rejects Trump’s ‘no bail’ immigration detention policy

(CN) — A Ninth Circuit panel ruled Thursday the federal government can’t detain immigrants who came into the U.S. without authorization, and who were captured in the interior of the country, without offering bail.The policy, U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel Bress wrote, would “require the mass detention of unadmitted aliens present in the United States and mark a sharp break from the past … that no administration has ever found a duty mandatorily to detain unadmitted aliens present in the interior of the country is strong evidence that it does not exist.”The 2-1 decision upholds a lower court ruling, and does not apply to immigrants arrested at or near the border, or to those who have committed certain criminal offenses.In an email, plaintiffs’ attorney Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project called ruling “huge for our class members and others who are similarly situated throughout the Ninth Circuit… especially so because the Department of Justice has not been complying with the district court order, even in class members’ cases, requiring them to first file a habeas petition to enforce the district court judgment.”He added: “Most detained people in removal proceedings do not have an attorney and are unable to file habeas petitions. But now, in light of today’s decision, they should once again have immediate access to bond hearings, so that they can return to their families and work during these lengthy immigration proceedings.”Up until recently, immigrants detained in the interior were held under Section 1226 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which requires bail to be set; those apprehended at the border while trying to cross were held under 1225, which does not require bail. But in 2025, the Trump administration issued guidance: all “unadmitted aliens,” those here illegally, were now subject to mandatory detention.In its appeal, the government argued that Section 1225 should apply to all immigrants.That part of the code reads, in part, “in the case of an alien who is an applicant for admission, if the examining immigration officer determines that an alien seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted, the alien shall be detained" and “shall be deemed for purposes of this chapter an applicant for admission.”The Ninth Circuit panel determined that the phrase applied to “aliens entering at the border” and not, say, to one arrested by immigration officers in a Home Depot parking lot.“The government’s interpretation is that all aliens present in the United States without admission are subject to § 1225(b)(2)(A) because, in its view, an ‘applicant for admission’ is necessarily ‘seeking admission,’” Bress, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote in Thursday’s opinion.That interpretation, however, “is inconsistent with ordinary language usage,” he said.He added: “We do not decide whether Congress could enact the detention regime as the government would now have it, but rather whether Congress did so in 1996. The better view is that it did not.”President Bill Clinton in 1996 signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which was meant to tighten up the border, but still gave immigrants detained in most of the country a chance to post bond.U.S. Circuit Judge Mary Margaret McKeown, a Clinton appointee, agreed with Bress, while U.S. Circuit Judge Carlos Bea, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a 31-page dissent, sprinkled with more than a hint of sarcasm.“Pervading the majority’s opinion is an underlying demand for congressional clarity to authorize mandatory detention of aliens who entered the country illegally,” Bea wrote.To expect such “an untold level of clarity,” he wrote, was unrealistic and would open the door “to judicial legislation, by allowing a judge to claim any text is just short of the clarity he would require.”At any rate, he added, the law seemed perfectly clear to him.“One can ask why Congress did not arrange its words in a more pleasing manner or why Congress did not use an exclamation point to confirm its intended action,” Bea wrote. “But a fair reading of the text leads to only one conclusion: 1225(a)(1) deems plaintiffs to be applicants for admission, and 225(b)(2)(A) states that applicants for admission (who, by their congressionally deemed status, are necessarily seeking admission) can be held without bond.”Trump’s rule change resulted in thousands of habeas petitions and other legal challenges, including from Ramon Rodriguez Vazquez, who was arrested last year in Washington.Rodriguez Vazquez, who was in the U.S. without permanent legal status since 2009, was denied bail by an immigration judge in Tacoma.He then filed a habeas petition and class action in federal court. A federal judge sided with Vazquez and found the new policy “belies the statutory text of the [Immigration and Nationality Act], canons of statutory interpretation, legislative history, and longstanding agency practice.”The topic of detention for immigrant detainees in the interior of the country has been litigated all over the country. The Fifth and Eighth Circuits have sided with the government, while the Second, Sixth, 10th, 11th, and now the Ninth Circuits have all sided with the habeas petitioners. The circuit split sets up a possible Supreme Court battle.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads