Appeals court upholds Trump detention policy for illegal immigrants

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the Trump administration’s mass detention policy, allowing illegal immigrants to be held without bail.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 2-1 that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can legally deny bond hearings to immigrants arrested nationwide under the Constitution and federal immigration law.

Attorney General Pam Bondi reacted to the ruling, saying the Department of Justice (DOJ) “achieved yet another crucial legal victory” in supporting President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.

“The Fifth Circuit just detained illegal aliens who can rightfully be held without bail — a major blow to activist judges who have undermined our efforts to make America safe again at every turn,” she wrote on

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A federal appeals court has upheld the Department of Homeland Security’s authority to detain illegal aliens without a bond hearing, a ruling Attorney General Pam Bondi called a major legal victory for the Trump administration. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Circuit Judge Edith H. Jones wrote in the majority opinion that “unadmitted aliens apprehended anywhere in the United States are not eligible for bail, regardless of the length of their residence in the United States.”

Many illegal immigrants who were not previously detained at the border were given the opportunity to request a bond hearing as their cases progressed, and those without criminal histories and who were not considered a flight risk were often granted bond.

“The fact that previous administrations decided to use less than their full enforcement authority under ‘the law’ does not mean that they did not have the authority to do more,” Jones wrote.

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The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that federal law allows illegal immigrants to be detained without bail, a decision praised by Attorney General Pam Bondi. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Disagreeing, Circuit Judge Dana M. Douglas said the members of Congress who passed the Immigration and Nationality Act about 30 years ago “would be surprised to learn that it also required the detention without bail of two million people.”

Douglas noted that some of those detained are “wives, mothers, fathers and grandparents of American citizens.”

The ruling follows two separate cases filed last year against the Trump administration, both involving Mexican nationals who had lived in the United States for more than a decade and were not considered a flight risk, according to their lawyers.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that federal law allows the Department of Homeland Security to deny bond hearings to illegal immigrants arrested across the country, siding with the Trump administration’s enforcement policy. (@ICE via X)

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Although they have no criminal records, both were jailed for months last year before a lower Texas court granted them bail last October.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.