A divided federal appeals court has ruled that the Trump administration may detain migrants arrested inside the United States without giving them a chance to seek release in immigration court.
The 2-1 decision, issued Friday by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, hands the administration a significant legal victory as it presses forward with mass deportations.
It sided with the government's argument that noncitizens in the country are "seeking admission, and therefore are not by statute entitled to bond hearings."
The ruling was issued just days after oral arguments, and upheld the administration's interpretation of federal detention statutes, even though it departs from decades of prior practice.
Judge Edith Jones, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, wrote for the majority that longstanding government practice does not override the plain language of the law.
Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, an appointee of President Donald Trump, joined in the decision.
"The text says what it says, regardless of the decisions of prior administrations," Jones wrote. "Years of consistent practice cannot vindicate an interpretation that is inconsistent with a statute's plain text."
Jones said that under the statute, noncitizens apprehended in the interior of the country are still considered to be "seeking admission" to the United States and therefore are not entitled to bond hearings, even if they have lived in the country for years.
She likened the status to a student applying to college.
"It would make no sense to say that as soon as the applicant clicks 'submit' on her application, she is no longer seeking admission," Jones wrote.
The ruling reverses decisions by two federal district judges in Texas who had ordered bond hearings for two men who entered the country illegally years earlier, Bloomberg Law reported.
The administration's mandatory detention policy has prompted a surge of habeas corpus petitions nationwide, with most lower court judges rejecting the government's interpretation of the law.
The issue is now moving through appellate courts.
Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected the administration's reasoning in an interim ruling and heard additional arguments this week. The Fifth Circuit on Friday became the first appellate court to fully side with the government.
Judge Dana Douglas, a Biden appointee, filed a lengthy, sharply worded dissent, warning that the majority's interpretation erases fundamental distinctions in immigration law and strips detainees of basic procedural protections.
"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," Douglas wrote.
She said Congress never intended the statute to mandate detention without bond for millions of people living in the United States.
"For almost 30 years, there was no sign anyone thought it had done so," Douglas wrote, adding that nothing in the legislative record supports the administration's approach.
Douglas also criticized the government for seeking expedited review in the Fifth Circuit while not pursuing a similar speed in the less conservative Seventh Circuit.
She said the administration's reading of the law would effectively erase the geographic concept of the border.
"The government's proposed reading of the statute would mean that, for purposes of immigration detention, the border is now everywhere," she wrote. "That is not the law Congress passed."
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