President Donald Trump attends the 157th National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery, Monday, May 26, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).
A group of immigrants is suing the Trump administration over a recent policy which ends bond eligibility for people who are currently being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
On July 8, ICE issued the new policy, instructing all agents to deny bond for anyone who entered the country without “inspection,” in a memo first reported by The Washington Post. Under the terms of the policy, such immigrants are to be detained “for the duration of their removal proceedings” unless granted parole – a rarer form of release.
The policy will result in tens of thousands of people being “jailed indefinitely while their immigration cases are considered for months or years on end,” according to advocates like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is spearheading the litigation along with attorneys from the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, a nonprofit.
On Monday, in a 37-page complaint, the plaintiffs asked a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
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The disputed policy is sourced from a long-standing section of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) which says certain immigrants “shall be detained for a proceeding.” Historically, this section of the INA has only applied to immigrants who are stopped at the border.
Now, however, the Trump administration has acknowledged a substantial departure from precedent. The memo, penned by acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons, says the federal government has “revisited its legal position on detention and release authorities” and determined such immigrants “may not be released from ICE custody.”
The upshot of the policy is that any detained immigrant facing deportation will be “subject to mandatory detention” under the relevant statute “without the opportunity for release on bond during the pendency of their lengthy removal proceedings,” according to the lawsuit.
“The Constitution guarantees all persons within the boundaries of the United States rights to equal due process under the law, full stop,” ACLU attorney and spokesperson Michael Tan said in a press release announcing the litigation. “The Trump Administration seeks to rewrite our Constitutional bedrock, denying millions of immigrants in cruel detention facilities the ability to seek bond. With one memo, ICE hopes to keep people away from their families for months – or even years – before their cases are even heard.”
The lawsuit likens the new anti-bond policy to a trial run of sorts performed by immigration judges in Tacoma, Washington. This trial run was eventually shut down by a federal judge.
From the filing, at length:
ICE and DOJ have adopted this new and unprecedented position on bond even though federal courts have rejected this exact conclusion. For example, in the Tacoma, Washington, immigration court, [immigration judges] previously stopped providing bond hearings for persons who entered the United States without inspection and who have since resided here, reasoning such people are subject to mandatory detention under § 1225(b)(2)(A). There, in granting preliminary injunctive relief, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington found that such a reading of the INA is likely unlawful[.]
To hear immigrants’ advocates – and the aforementioned federal court in the Evergreen State – tell it, the Trump administration is choosing to apply the incorrect statute to immigrants who entered the country “without inspection and who have since resided here.”
The four plaintiffs in the case have, collectively, lived in the U.S. for nearly 50 years. The ACLU hopes the length of their time here will highlight the marked shift in policy. The plaintiffs are filing their lawsuit as a class action to represent “at least thousands of individuals detained each year at immigration detention centers across the country to whom the DHS’s no-bond policy applies” as well as “many future potential members, given the large numbers of persons residing in the United States who entered without inspection.”
“This detention policy blatantly violates the immigration laws that have been in effect for almost thirty years,” Northwest Immigrant Rights Project Legal Director Matt Adams said in a statement. “Our clients are standing up on behalf of themselves and thousands of others like them, who have lived in this country with their families for years, and are entitled to individual custody determinations.”
FILE – In this Aug. 28, 2019, photo, a guard stands in the intake area at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Adelanto, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File).
Each of the plaintiffs were recently detained during immigration raids in Los Angeles and are currently detained in the same ICE facility.
The plaintiffs insist the correct section of the INA to apply to long-term immigrant residents is § 1226(a), which allows for release on money bond or parole – with strict limits on work authorizations.
The lawsuit argues the new policy “defies the INA” as well as a recently passed law – the Laken Riley Act – which excludes “certain noncitizens who entered without inspection” from the INA’s “default bond provision.” The new law making mention of such a provision means the INA does, in fact, assume bond is the standard, according to the filing.
“When Congress creates ‘specific exceptions’ to a statute’s applicability, it ‘proves’ that absent those exceptions, the statute generally applies,” the lawsuit reads – citing the recent court decision. “Section 1226 therefore leaves no doubt that it applies to people who face charges of being inadmissible to the United States, including those who are present without admission or parole.”
The lawsuit alleges several counts including violations of the INA, regulations associated with the INA, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Sunshine Suzanne Sykes, a Joe Biden appointee. Currently, the docket is being handled by a magistrate judge.
