Judge orders Trump administration to provide bond hearings to detained migrants | Trump administration
A federal judge has ruled that Donald Trump’s administration cannot impose mandatory detention on thousands of migrants held by U.S. immigration authorities without first giving them the opportunity to seek release on bail.
U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, Calif., certified a nationwide group of individuals who were already living in the United States at the time of their detention to be legally entitled to a hearing to determine whether they can be released on bail while their deportation cases are pending.
Sykes ruled last week that the Trump administration’s policy adopted in July of denying bond hearings to migrants detained in U.S. enforcement operations was unlawful, joining dozens of other federal judges. Although these decisions affected individual migrants or small groups, Sykes on Tuesday extended his power to the entire country.
About 65,000 people were in immigration detention in the United States last week, according to government data.
The Trump administration argued that the individuals’ different circumstances required the issue to be considered on a case-by-case basis, but Sykes said being deprived of the right to a bond hearing was a common harm to the class.
“Such common harms can be resolved in one fell swoop if the new policy is determined to violate (migrants’) due process rights,” Sykes, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote.
The U.S. Department of Justice and attorneys for the four migrants who filed the suit did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Under federal immigration law, “applicants for admission” to the United States are subject to mandatory detention while their cases are processed in immigration courts.
Contrary to a long-standing interpretation of the law, the Trump administration said in July that noncitizens already residing in the United States, not just those arriving at a border port of entry, were eligible for admission.
Sykes, in his ruling last week, disagreed, saying the law clearly distinguished between existing U.S. residents and new arrivals.
