Trump’s ‘Mass-Detention’ Policy Rejected by Appeals Court (1)

An appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s policy of detaining noncitizens arrested inside the US, saying it would amount to “the broadest mass-detention-without-bond mandate in our nation’s history,” in a ruling that’s likely to push the issue toward the Supreme Court.

Holding potentially millions of noncitizens without offering them bond hearings conflicts with decades of practice and the law itself, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Tuesday.

For decades, it was largely undisputed that noncitizens apprehended inside the country—as opposed to those coming in at the border—were entitled to hearings in immigration court at which they could argue for their release. But last year, the Trump administration declared that under its new interpretation of the law, even noncitizens who have lived in the country for years don’t have the right to a bond hearing.

The reinterpretation has led to an avalanche of habeas corpus petitions that have overwhelmed district courts around the country for months. It has also sparked contentious litigation from coast to coast, including class challenges brought by groups of detained noncitizens.

Read more: In Overloaded Immigration Courts, Detainees Fight Long Odds

Holding people in jail is a powerful way to boost the administration’s goal of mass deportation, advocates say, as people in detention are far less likely to successfully fight their removal from the country.

The mandatory detention matter has made its way to multiple appellate circuits in recent months, resulting in split opinions that indicate it’s heading to the Supreme Court. The Fifth Circuit and Eighth Circuit sided with Trump, while the Seventh delivered a preliminary decision expressing deep skepticism of the administration’s stance.

Even if the Trump administration’s interpretation were plausible, “we would nonetheless reject it based on our obligation to construe these statutes in a manner that would avoid the serious constitutional questions attendant to what would be the broadest mass-detention-without-bond mandate in our Nation’s history for millions of noncitizens,” Judge Joseph Bianco wrote in Tuesday’s decision.

‘Poses No Danger’

The matter reached the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit when the government appealed a lower court judge’s decision to grant a habeas corpus petition for Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, who was arrested by immigration agents last year after two decades living in the United States. The district court ordered a bond hearing, and he was ultimately ordered released by an immigration judge.

Barbosa da Cunha, a Brazilian man who came to the US illegally, is a married homeowner with two children and no criminal convictions, the opinion notes, and the government conceded he “poses no danger to the community nor risk of flight.”

If he had been apprehended before the administration implemented its novel stance on detention law, Bianco wrote, he would have been granted a bond hearing and released while his case proceeded.

‘Seeking Admission’

The government’s stance simply doesn’t reflect the law, the Second Circuit found.

“The government claims that mandatory detention must continue regardless of how long removal proceedings take—even if the noncitizen poses no danger to the community or risk of flight,” Bianco wrote. “That is not what the law says.”

And while two appellate courts so far have sided with Trump, the overwhelming majority of federal district court decisions have rejected his interpretation, Bianco wrote.

Mandatory detention applies to noncitizens who are “seeking admission” to the country, and despite the government’s arguments, that doesn’t apply to Barbosa da Cunha—who “indisputably never sought or applied for lawful entry after inspection and authorization, and is not doing so now,” Bianco wrote.

“If someone sneaks into Yankee Stadium at the start of the game with no ticket for admission (and no intention of ever paying) and he is later found by security in a seat in the seventh inning, no one would consider that fan to be ‘seeking admission’ to the game,” Bianco wrote.

In a concurrence, Senior Judge José Cabranes lauded the majority opinion and rejected the administration’s argument that “Congress clearly required the Executive to detain millions of people like Petitioner—parents of American children, owners of American businesses, members of American communities—but that some thirty years passed before anyone noticed.”

Cabranes called back to the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Jennings v. Rodriguez, which mentioned that the statute allowing for bond hearings applies to “certain aliens already in the country.”

“Even if the Supreme Court’s observations are dicta, as Respondent claims, they are right,” Cabranes wrote.

Judge Alison Nathan also sat on the panel.

The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Paul O’Dwyer of Manhattan represent Barbosa da Cunha.

The case is Barbosa da Cunha v. Moniz, 2d Cir., No. 25-3141, opinion 4/28/26.