Supreme Court grants review of Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy for immigrants

By Michael Kunzelman / Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to review a Trump administration policy denying bond hearings for immigrants as the government carries out a sweeping crackdown.

The justices will consider whether immigrants who have been living in the U.S. have a right to a hearing to determine if they should remain detained while challenging their possible deportation.

The case will test a key pillar of the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration agenda.

Most appeals courts that have considered the issue have found that it violates federal law to detain immigrants, including those living in the U.S. illegally, without a bond hearing.

Those decisions conflict with rulings by the 5th and 8th circuits, which held that immigrants accused of illegally entering and remaining in the U.S. must be detained while their deportation cases are pending.

El Paso and all of Texas fall under the jurisdiction of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

READ MORE: ‘Why are you taking her?’ ICE arrests surge in El Paso region as families feel the impact 

The high court agreed to hear the case of Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, a citizen of Brazil. Authorities say he entered the United States illegally two decades ago and applied for asylum in 2016. He sought a bond hearing after an immigration judge determined that his detention was mandatory following his September 2025 arrest.

He has never been charged or convicted of a crime, his attorneys said. The court is expected to hear the case in the coming months.

President Donald Trump’s administration had urged the high court to take up a different but related case that involves the broader constitutional implications of the new policy.

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Attorneys from the Republican administration argue the circuits’ split is “disrupting the orderly administration of immigration law.”

They say the nation’s courts have been inundated with thousands of petitions filed by immigrants challenging the government’s legal interpretation.

“The result is an unworkable patchwork of inconsistent immigration enforcement, where aliens present without admission are subject to mandatory detention in some circuits but are entitled to bond hearings and often released in others,” lawyers for the administration wrote.

The plaintiffs are immigrants represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which says hundreds of district court judges have joined most circuits in rejecting the Trump administration’s new reading of the statutes.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers say the administration is trying to deny bond hearings for immigrants apprehended anywhere in the U.S. — no matter how long they’ve lived in the country — rather than limiting the restriction to noncitizens stopped at the border.

“Millions of noncitizens could be affected by the government’s new interpretation,” ACLU attorneys wrote.

The Trump administration says its new mandatory detention policy is legal under a 1996 immigration law. The policy change departs from the practices of prior administrations, which typically allowed most noncitizens without criminal records to request a bond hearing if they were arrested away from the border.

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