The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit handed the Trump administration a significant immigration enforcement victory Friday, ruling that certain immigrants detained while facing removal proceedings do not have a constitutional right to receive individualized bond hearings.
Advertisement
In a 10-7 decision, the full New Orleans-based appeals court concluded that the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause does not require the federal government to provide the detainees at issue with hearings allowing them to seek release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody while their deportation cases remain pending.
The decision allows the Trump administration to continue its mandatory-detention policy within the Fifth Circuit, which covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi and includes some of the nation’s largest immigration detention populations.
Advertisement
The dispute involved three immigrants who entered the United States illegally and later lived in the country for years before being detained during the Trump administration’s current immigration enforcement campaign.
All three had lived in the United States for at least 14 years, had no criminal histories and were raising U.S. citizen children when they were taken into custody, according to court records and reporting on the case.
Federal district judges previously ordered the men released after determining that continued detention without an opportunity for a bond hearing violated their constitutional due-process rights.
A three-judge Fifth Circuit panel initially agreed in July, ruling that immigrants covered by the policy could not be detained for more than 90 days without receiving a hearing where the government would have to justify continued confinement.
The full appeals court later vacated that decision and agreed to rehear the dispute en banc, setting up Friday’s reversal.
Writing for the majority, Trump-appointed Judge Cory Wilson concluded that because the three immigrants had never been legally admitted into the United States, they were not constitutionally entitled to immigration-court procedures beyond those provided by Congress.
Wilson also rejected the argument that lengthy detention created a separate constitutional problem, reasoning that Congress possesses broad authority to establish immigration rules governing people who have not been legally admitted.
Advertisement
“To the extent petitioners seek to vindicate a liberty interest,” Wilson wrote, they could end their detention by agreeing to leave the United States.
The ruling supports an immigration policy adopted by the Trump administration in 2025 that treats certain immigrants who entered without inspection as applicants for admission subject to mandatory detention while removal proceedings are underway.
That interpretation represented a change from roughly three decades of government practice and has generated extensive litigation as ICE expanded detention during Trump’s broader deportation campaign.
Advertisement
The administration argues that federal immigration law requires mandatory detention for the affected group and does not give immigration judges authority to release them through ordinary bond proceedings.
Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival celebrated Friday’s ruling as a major victory for the administration’s mandatory-detention policy.
The court’s seven dissenting judges strongly disagreed with the majority’s constitutional reasoning, arguing that people who have lived inside the United States for years retain meaningful Fifth Amendment protections against prolonged detention without judicial review.
Judge Leslie Southwick, a George W. Bush appointee, warned that the majority had created an “impenetrable wall” separating the Constitution from long-term residents facing detention.
Advertisement
Judge Dana Douglas, a Biden appointee, separately argued that unchecked executive authority to arrest and indefinitely detain individuals without meaningful review raised serious constitutional concerns.
Attorneys representing the immigrants also criticized the ruling, contending that bond hearings provide an essential mechanism for determining whether individual detainees actually present a danger to the public or a risk of fleeing.
The decision does not automatically establish a nationwide rule because Fifth Circuit decisions directly govern federal courts in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
The broader legal battle, however, is already headed toward the Supreme Court after the justices agreed this month to consider a related dispute over whether federal immigration law itself requires bond hearings for immigrants covered by the administration’s detention policy.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
