Trump's DHS Locked Up Longtime Residents Without Bond Hearings; Nine Appeals Courts Rejected the Rule

A Detention Order Became a Denial of Bond

Rigoberto Santillan Quiroz had lived in the United States since 2006 when ICE arrested him after a traffic stop.¹ In its June 30, 2026 opinion, the Tenth Circuit wrote that he had been "detained for more than eight consecutive months and counting" without a bond hearing.¹ The court added: "He is not charged with a crime. Nor does anyone suggest that he is a flight risk or a danger to the community."¹

He was held under a rule that Trump's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) adopted in July 2025.²¹ It kept longtime residents confined with no chance to ask an immigration judge for release on bond.²³ The Third Circuit held that detention without hearings violated both immigration law and due process.⁴

Trump ordered the detention drive: his January 20, 2025 executive order directed DHS to "ensure the detention of aliens apprehended for violations of immigration law" during removal proceedings, to the extent permitted by law.⁵ His department wrote the no-bond rule that July; the order did not expressly abolish hearings.²⁵

For decades, administrations had generally used section 1226 for interior arrests of residents who entered without inspection, allowing bond or conditional release unless another mandatory-detention provision applied.³⁶ DHS switched to section 1225, the mandatory-detention provision previously used for people seeking entry at the border, because the residents had never been formally admitted.²³ Admission status displaced the individual assessment of whether a person needed to remain confined.⁷

A Father Lost His Freedom and His Family Lost His Support

Santillan Quiroz had married a lawful permanent resident and become a father to a U.S.-citizen stepdaughter.¹ He provided financial support and cared for his wife during treatment for a heart condition.¹ ICE began removal proceedings against him for entering without admission or parole.¹

His record held one DUI, for which he completed community service.¹ DHS nevertheless insisted that the statute required his confinement.¹ The Tenth Circuit rejected that reading and ordered the district court, once the ruling took effect, to require a bond hearing or release within seven days of its order.¹

The costs extended beyond one family: the Tenth Circuit said the policy had caused "a large increase in the number of immigration detainees and a flood of habeas petitions"; DOJ acknowledged that thousands of people had filed them, seeking release or a hearing.¹² The Fourth Circuit reported on September 10 that more than five hundred district courts had rejected the government's interpretation and sided with petitioners in more than twenty thousand individual cases.⁸

The Government's Best Defense, and What Happened to It

The government's strongest defense is that Congress defined applicants for admission to include people already present without admission, and required their detention during removal proceedings.²⁶ DOJ argued that custody prevents missed hearings, helps ensure removal and avoids rewarding unlawful entry.⁶ On that reading, officials are enforcing Congress's command.⁶ DOJ also argued that due process did not require a hearing on danger or flight risk because those facts were irrelevant under its reading of the detention law.⁶ The Third Circuit rejected that argument, distinguishing the government's precedent about reputational harm from these residents' loss of liberty.⁴

No figure in DOJ's Supreme Court petitions shows whether denying bond hearings improved attendance at immigration proceedings or increased completed removals.⁶² The policy did increase confinement, and Santillan Quiroz was held without any claimed flight risk.¹

The Fourth Circuit reported on September 10 that more than five hundred district courts had rejected the government's interpretation and sided with petitioners in more than twenty thousand individual cases.⁸ By September 10, nine circuits had rejected DHS's reading of the law, "the overwhelming majority of circuit courts of appeal that have considered this question" in the Fourth Circuit's words; the Fifth and Eighth had accepted it.⁸² The courts rejecting it held that being deemed an applicant for admission does not make a longtime resident actively seek entry, and that section 1226 supplies the detention rules for these residents.⁷⁹³ Bond eligibility leaves the removal case intact; it lets a judge decide whether release is appropriate.⁹¹

Even in the Fifth Circuit, a panel affirmed relief for three longtime residents on July 2, holding that due process required an individualized hearing by 90 days for the detainees considered.¹⁰ The full court set that ruling aside on July 10 and suspended the residents' court-ordered protection on July 21 while it reconsidered the case.¹¹¹²

Eleven Residents Won Relief, and Classes Won Access to Hearings

DOJ's petition reports that on May 11, 2026, the Sixth Circuit upheld relief for eleven residents, holding that section 1226 governed and that denying hearings violated due process.⁶ The government had released the detained residents after district court orders, then appealed, and on June 22 asked the Supreme Court to reverse.⁶

The Third Circuit affirmed two residents' release orders, finding statutory and due-process violations.⁴ The Fourth Circuit rejected the policy on September 10 for two Washington, D.C., residents detained in Virginia.⁸

Two rulings covered classes: the Ninth Circuit affirmed a Western Washington class's challenge, and the First Circuit affirmed bond eligibility for a Massachusetts class.³⁹ The Washington class's named plaintiff, Ramon Rodriguez Vazquez, received his hearing and was denied bond; he chose voluntary departure rather than continue challenging detention and removal.³

DHS Threatened Rearrest After Two Bond Grants

Jaciel Cirrus Rojas won bond twice.⁷ The first immigration judge found him neither dangerous nor likely to flee, but DHS appealed and automatically stayed the order, keeping him in custody.⁷ A second judge also found him neither dangerous nor a flight risk and granted bond after a separate class ruling. He was released, but when that class ruling was stayed, DHS issued a notice purporting to cancel his bond and appealed again. The Seventh Circuit said DHS had not challenged the judges' risk findings in its most recent appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals.⁷

DHS told the Seventh Circuit it would re-detain Rojas if the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed his second bond grant; after June 15 argument, the board did so.⁷ On July 30, the court held him eligible for a hearing under section 1226 and directed habeas relief.⁷ The court said the record suggested the government had not yet re-detained him.⁷

Due Process Required a Hearing for T.C. Despite the Laken Riley Act

The same denial of individual review arose under a different detention law when ICE arrested T.C., a Georgian asylum seeker, at a routine Manhattan check-in on June 12, 2026 and held him for almost three months.¹³ He had attended check-ins and immigration proceedings, which the government did not dispute.¹³

An ICE officer swore that T.C.'s New Jersey shoplifting charge was still pending.¹³ Judge Ann Donnelly found that the records showed it had been dismissed after he pleaded guilty to interfering with the inhabitants of the township; a separate Pennsylvania retail-theft arrest nevertheless met the Laken Riley Act's detention requirements.¹³

On September 8, without deciding whether the Act's detention provision was itself unconstitutional, Donnelly held that continued detention without a hearing violated due process because officials had never determined that T.C. was dangerous or likely to flee.¹³ She ordered a hearing by September 11 or release, with the government required to prove danger or flight risk by clear and convincing evidence.¹³ She also required the immigration judge to consider alternatives to detention and T.C.'s ability to pay any bond.¹³

The Court Granted Review on October 1

On July 23, DHS officials asked the Supreme Court to review the Second Circuit's April 28 rejection of the policy in Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha's case.²¹⁴ Its own petition says he received a court-ordered bond hearing on October 28, 2025 and was released the next day; the government appealed.² The Court granted review on October 1, 2026; as of October 10, it had issued no merits ruling.¹⁴

Denial of hearings was one of several abuses in Trump's detention expansion: Judge Lewis Kaplan found that ICE's summer 2025 conditions at 26 Federal Plaza unconstitutionally deprived detainees of sleep, sanitation, adequate food and water, and medical care.¹⁵

The charge is the use of executive power to lock up longtime residents without letting them contest the need for confinement.²¹ It belongs here because Trump ordered the detention drive and his department turned it into a blanket denial of individual hearings.⁵² The price was months of lost liberty, and appeals courts found violations of both immigration law and due process.¹⁴⁶