Denying Noncitizens Bond Hearings Violates Rights, Judge Says

Denying immigration detainees bond hearings and subjecting them to mandatory detention violates federal law, a US judge has ruled.

Judge Tiffany Cartwright‘s ruling comes in a class action challenging the Tacoma, Wash., immigration court’s interpretation of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act to mandate detention without the possibility of bond for non-citizens who have entered the US without “inspection” and held for possible removal even if they’ve been in the US for years and are neither a flight risk nor pose a danger the community.

Rejecting the federal government’s motion to dismiss, the US District Court for the Western District of Washington judge said Monday that “every district court to address this question has concluded that the government’s position belies the statutory text of the INA, canons of statutory interpretation, legislative history, and longstanding agency practice.”

Her ruling addressed a national policy shift barring the release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody of any non-citizens not lawfully admitted to the US, except by discretionary parole. “The government’s policy shift has been estimated as requiring the detention of millions of individuals currently living in the United States,” Cartwright said.

In the same 59-page decision, the judge also said a second group of plaintiffs, the “bond appeal class,” has stated a plausible claim that delays by the Board of Immigration Appeals in hearing bond denial appeals “are so prolonged that they violate due process.” Her decision grants partial summary judgment to lead plaintiff Ramon Rodriguez Vazquez and the two classes.

On April 24, the district court granted Rodriguez Vazquez’s motion for a preliminary injunction, concluding that the Tacoma, Washington immigration court’s practice was likely illegal.

‘No Substantive Arguments’

The defendants—who include Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and officials with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement—opposed granting injunctive relief, but they made “no substantive arguments” at the time regarding the applicable detention authority for noncitizens such as Rodriguez Vazquez, who were apprehended while residing in the US, the judge said.

The court has jurisdiction to hear Rodriguez Vazquez’s claims, Cartwright said.

First, the classes’ claims that concern discretionary actions aren’t barred by section 1252(g) of the immigration act, said Cartwright. At the same time, although the statutory scheme was designed to limit all noncitizens “to one bite of the apple” with regard to removal challenges, a separate US Code section, 1252(b)(9), doesn’t bar claims that are ‘independent of or collateral to the removal process,’” she said.

Because the court has jurisdiction to review the two classes’ claims on their merits, Cartwright said, she also denied defendants’ motion to dismiss on those grounds.

Legislative History

The judge also turned down the government’s bid for dismissal of the bond appeal class claims, because its members have stated “a plausible claim that defendants’ current pace of processing appeals at the BIA violates their liberty interest in freedom from imprisonment without due process of law.”

The government also fails because it takes a broad brush to what are actually specific semantic distinctions in immigration laws and recent changes to them, Cartwright said.

Congress chose to use different phrases to delineate separate categories of “noncitizens” in section 1225, for example. Yet defendants take an approach that equates “applicants for admission” with those “seeking admission,” which “robs the latter phrase of any meaning within the broader provision,” she said.

The legislative history behind section 1226 also “tends to support” the bond denial class’s argument that it governs noncitizens like them who reside in the US but entered without inspection, she said.

Northwest Immigrant Rights Project represents Rodriguez Vazquez.

The case is Vazquez v. Bostock, W.D. Wash., No. 3:25-cv-05240, order 9/30/25.