A divided Fifth Circuit panel ruled Friday that the Trump administration can lawfully deny bond hearings for many people in deportation proceedings, despite over 300 federal judges having ruled to the contrary.
The conservative majority overruled federal judges in two separate cases, bucking nearly 30 years of federal immigration policy requiring mandatory detention of “applicants for admission” only for individuals in removal proceedings who presented at a port of entry or were detained shortly after crossing the border, while allowing detainees already living in the U.S. to request release on bond.
“In contrast to past administrations, the current administration has chosen to exercise a greater portion of its authority by treating applicants for admission under the provision designed to apply to them,” U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wrote for the majority.
In July 2025, ICE announced in a memo that, going forward, all “applicants for admission” — defined in immigration statute as “an alien present in the United States who has not been admitted or who arrives in the United States” — in deportation proceedings would be subject to mandatory detention. Bond hearings would be reserved only for immigrants who were admitted into the country but later lost their legal status.
This meant that all individuals who entered the country without being legally admitted — including those who were paroled into the country, which does not count as lawful admission — will be subject to mandatory detention and held without bond while they go through removal proceedings, regardless of how long they’ve been in the U.S.
“After reviewing carefully the relevant provisions and structure of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, the statutory history, and Congressional intent, we conclude that the government’s position is correct,” Jones wrote, joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, a Donald Trump appointee.
The ICE memo resulted in a wave of habeas petitions in federal courts. According to a recent analysis, over 300 federal judges have ruled that the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy is illegal, with only a handful siding with the administration.
The two habeas petitioners in immigration detention in the case — one of whom came to the U.S in 2009 and the other in 2001 — argued in oral arguments Tuesday that while they were “applicants for admission,” the statute’s mandatory detention provision applies to people “seeking admission.” An ACLU attorney for the pair said they were not seeking admission to the country but rather relief from removal.
But the panel’s majority found that all “applicants for admission” are “seeking admission” to the U.S. Jones likened the situation to someone applying for 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, merely because she does not take any further affirmative steps to gain admittance. Instead, she would ordinarily be understood to be seeking admission as long as her application is pending,” Jones wrote. “The same is true here. The petitioners are deemed, by statute, to be applicants for admission pending the resolution of removal proceedings. While they remain applicants, they are presently seeking admission.”
One of two federal statutes in the Immigration and Naturalization Act at issue is 8 U.S. Code §1225, which applies to “applicants for admission.” A provision of the statute states that “an alien seeking admission” who is “not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted” must be detained and put through removal proceedings.
Meanwhile, §1226 governs deportation proceedings more generally, providing for discretionary detention and allowing the government to release detainees on bond while they go through removal proceedings. Federal regulations give people detained under the statute the right to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge.
U.S. Circuit Judge Dana Douglas, a Joe Biden appointee, highlighted the lower courts’ numerous opposing rulings in her dissent from the majority’s opinion.
“No matter that this newly discovered mandate arrives without historical precedent, and in the teeth of one of the core distinctions of immigration law. The overwhelming majority of courts in this circuit and elsewhere have recognized that the government’s position is totally unsupported,” Douglas wrote.
She criticized the majority for their unprecedented legal holding.
“The majority stakes the largest detention initiative in American history on the possibility that ‘seeking admission’ is like being an ‘applicant for admission,’ in a statute that has never been applied in this way, 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,” she added. “Straining at a gnat, the majority swallows a camel.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the two petitioners, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem wrote Friday on social media, “For months, activist judges have ordered the release of alien after alien based on the false claim that DHS was breaking the law. Today, the first court of appeals to address the question ruled that @DHSGov was right all along.”
