Inset: President Donald Trump walks from Marine One after arriving on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File). Background: Demonstrators gather in south Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 24, 2026, after a man is shot and killed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents earlier that morning, according to officials. (Christian Zander/NurPhoto via AP).
For the third time in three weeks, a federal court of appeals has ruled against government attempts to indefinitely detain immigrants, in a ruling restricting the power of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
On July 8, 2025, ICE issued the new policy, instructing agents to deny bond for anyone who entered the country without "inspection," in a memo that has since opened the floodgates of litigation as dozens of detained individuals have filed petitions for a writ of habeas corpus.
Under the terms of the policy, such immigrants are to be detained "for the duration of their removal proceedings" unless granted parole — a much rarer form of release. In real terms, the Trump administration has made clear that parole is not on the table and that such detentions are intended to be indefinite or until those detained can be deported.
On Monday evening, a 2-1 panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit rejected the government's novel interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), reinforcing a circuit split and all but certainly leading to resolution before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The policy in question comes from a long-standing section of the INA that says certain immigrants "shall be detained for a proceeding." Historically, this statute has only applied to immigrants stopped at the border. Now, however, the Trump administration says immigrants detained in the country "may not be released from ICE custody."
Since summer 2025, in hundreds of disputes before district courts, judges have considered the interplay between — and applicability of — two distinct statutes outlining the government's detention authority, using language from a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The government claims ICE has the authority to subject immigrants to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. §1225(b), which applies to "aliens seeking entry into the United States."
Advocates for immigrants — as well as most judges who have ruled on the matter — have instead turned to 8 U.S.C. §1226(a), which applies to "aliens already present in the United States."
Notably, over 425 district court judges, including many appointed by President Donald Trump himself, have rejected ICE's position about its detention authority, according to a rolling analysis of court rulings by Politico.
Now, settling the dispute at the 6th Circuit, an appeals court has, for the third time, flatly rejected the disputed ICE policy.
The majority opinion frames the issue as a relatively straightforward choice between either aforementioned section of the INA.
"The thrust of this appeal is whether a noncitizen detained within the interior of the United States who never affirmatively applied for admission is subject to 8 U.S.C. §1225(b)(2)(A)'s mandatory detention scheme or 8 U.S.C. §1226's permissive detention scheme," the opinion reads.
The court wastes little time before casting its lot with two other appellate courts — the 2nd and 11th Circuits – who have held that §1225(b) "does not apply to noncitizens like Petitioners."
Here, the panel finds the debate is largely about what Congress meant for an immigrant to be "seeking admission" in §1225(b).
In settling the dispute, the court turns to dictionary definitions — which require some kind of "affirmative act or attempt" towards what the statute terms "admission," according to the majority.
This results in a clear statement of law:
[F]or a noncitizen to be "seeking admission" under § 1225(b)(2)(A), the noncitizen must actively be in search of lawful entry into the United States via inspection and authorization by an immigration officer. Noncitizens like Petitioners, who did not attempt lawful entry into the United States and are actively avoiding being inspected for lawful entry, are not "seeking admission" and are thus not subject to § 1225(b)(2)(A)'s mandatory detention scheme.
The opinion goes on to essay a different kind of challenge entirely to the Trump administration's new policy.
At the outset, the Cincinnati-based panel notes that all of the consolidated cases on appeal, with one exception, resulted in lower courts finding that "the government's failure to provide a bond hearing violated Petitioners' Fifth Amendment due process rights."
Here, the court begins by restating decades worth of precedent, at length:
Noncitizens who have "passed through our gates, even illegally, may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness encompassed in due process of law." … Consequently, the government may not deny "notice" or "an opportunity to be heard" to a noncitizen "who has entered the country, and has become subject in all respects to its jurisdiction, and a part of its population, although alleged to be illegally here."
The court clarifies that detention during deportation proceedings is constitutionally permissible but cautions that "the government's ability to detain noncitizens is not limitless." And, in the current iteration of government, something like limitless detention is exactly what the government is proposing.
Here, the majority uses the dissent as a foil.
The court cites a section of the dissent arguing that immigrants "do not have a due process 'liberty' interest (or private right) to enter the United States or continue to reside in the country after entering it."
"This misses the mark," the majority opines. "Rather, Petitioners rightfully state that they have a liberty interest to be free from detention…this is the most fundamental interest protected by the Due Process Clause and is shared by citizens and noncitizens alike. It is from this liberty interest that detention without an individualized bond hearing can become constitutionally impermissible, even if the detention has a theoretical end point."
In other words, the court is suggesting the government's theoretical end point — of deportation — is something not entirely unlike window dressing on a policy that asserts the power to detain indefinitely.
"The district courts determined that the government's detention of Petitioners without bond under §1226(a) was a deprivation of liberty that violated Petitioners' due process rights," the opinion continues. "We find no error in the district courts' conclusions that Petitioners were due individualized bond hearings in light of the significant time they have spent within the interior of the United States."
The opinion concludes by humanizing the immigrants who challenged their detention in two Michigan federal court systems.
"Petitioners are more than just names on a pleading," the judges write."All appear to contribute to their neighborhoods and local communities. Many are the primary breadwinners or essential caregivers for their families, which include their children who were born here and are citizens of the United States."