A federal appeals court has delivered a significant setback to the Trump administration’s mass detention practices for undocumented immigrants, ruling that many detainees should have been given the chance to seek release while their deportation cases move through the courts.
In a decision issued this week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the federal government has, for more than three decades, drawn a clear legal distinction between immigrants apprehended at the border and those detained after living inside the United States. That long-standing practice, the court said, has been abandoned under the current administration’s approach.
Historically, immigrants caught at the border have faced rapid detention and removal, often without a court hearing. Those already living within the U.S., by contrast, have generally been permitted to post bond and remain with their families while their immigration cases are pending.
The Trump administration has erased that distinction, treating both groups the same way — a shift that has packed immigration detention facilities beyond capacity and flooded federal courts with thousands of petitions from detainees seeking release, according to court records and prior CalMatters reporting.
Writing for the majority, Ninth Circuit Judge Daniel Bress — a Trump appointee — noted that some of the immigrants swept up in the policy have lived in the United States for years. While acknowledging that federal immigration statutes contain conflicting language on the issue, Bress pointed to decades of consistent government practice as the deciding factor.
“We have 30 years of action here — the government has actively treated undocumented immigrants present in the interior of the country as people entitled to bond hearings,” Bress wrote in the opinion.
The case originated with immigrants held in the Seattle area, but the ruling applies broadly across the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction, which covers much of the western United States, including California.
The panel’s decision was far from unanimous, splitting 2-1, underscoring a broader divide among federal courts nationwide over how to interpret detention law for immigrants living inside the country. Given that lower courts have reached conflicting conclusions on the matter, legal observers expect the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately be asked to weigh in and settle the question.
CalMatters reporter Lynn La contributed to this report.
Original source: CalMatters
