Trump's DHS Locked Up Longtime Residents Without Bond Hearings; Nine Appeals Courts Rejected the Rule
Chapter 1 — DHS Replaced Individual Hearings With a Blanket Rule
Chapter 2 — Courts Divided, but the Harm Was Concrete
Chapter 3 — The Supreme Court Agreed to Decide
1 · DHS Replaced Individual Hearings With a Blanket Rule
1.1 — A Detention Order Became a Denial of Bond
1.2 — A Father Lost His Freedom and His Family Lost His Support
Trump's January 20, 2025 executive order told DHS to detain people apprehended for immigration violations during their removal cases, to the extent permitted by law. In July 2025 his DHS denied bond eligibility to residents who had never been formally admitted, including people who had lived here for years. They lost the chance to ask a judge whether their confinement was necessary.
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Rigoberto Santillan Quiroz had lived in the United States since 2006 and supported his wife through treatment for a heart condition. The Tenth Circuit described more than eight months of detention without a bond hearing, though he faced no current criminal charge and no one claimed he was dangerous or likely to flee. It ordered that he get a hearing or be released within seven days of the lower court's order.
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2 · Courts Divided, but the Harm Was Concrete
2.1 — The Government's Best Defense, and What Happened to It
2.2 — Eleven Residents Won Relief, and Classes Won Access to Hearings
2.3 — DHS Threatened Rearrest After Two Bond Grants
2.4 — Due Process Required a Hearing for T.C. Despite the Laken Riley Act
The government says Congress required detention for people never admitted, to secure appearances and carry out removals. 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. The Third Circuit rejected that argument, distinguishing the government's precedent about reputational harm from these residents' loss of liberty. 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. By September 10, nine appeals courts had rejected its reading of the law, while the Fifth and Eighth Circuits accepted it. A Fifth Circuit panel required hearings by 90 days for the residents it considered, but the full court set that ruling aside and suspended their court-ordered protection.
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The Sixth Circuit upheld relief for eleven residents, and the Third Circuit affirmed release orders for two more. Other courts protected access to hearings for classes in Western Washington and Massachusetts and for two Washington, D.C., residents detained in Virginia. The Washington class's named plaintiff got his hearing, was denied bond and chose voluntary departure.
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Two immigration judges found Jaciel Cirrus Rojas neither dangerous nor a flight risk and granted him bond. The Seventh Circuit said DHS had not challenged the judges' risk findings in its most recent appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals. DHS blocked the first release, then issued a notice claiming to cancel the second bond and threatened to detain him again. The Seventh Circuit rejected the blanket no-bond rule and ordered the district court to grant his challenge to detention.
ICE held Georgian asylum seeker T.C. for almost three months after arresting him at a routine check-in. An officer swore that a shoplifting charge was pending, but Judge Ann Donnelly found the records showed it had been dismissed. A separate theft arrest justified detention under the Laken Riley Act, yet the judge ruled that due process entitled him to a hearing by September 11 or release. She also required the immigration judge to consider alternatives to detention and T.C.'s ability to pay any bond.
3 · The Supreme Court Agreed to Decide
3.1 — The Court Granted Review on October 1
DHS asked the Supreme Court to review its no-bond rule after the Second Circuit rejected it, and the Court agreed on October 1, 2026. Whatever it decides, the policy had already confined longtime residents without individual hearings and forced them into court to contest it.
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Full Source Index
Primary Sources
- [1]Santillan Quiroz v. Mullin, No. 26-6019 (10th Cir. June 30, 2026) · appellate opinion
- [2]Petition for certiorari, Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, No. 26-104 (July 23, 2026), with Second Circuit opinion in Appendix A · government filing and appended opinion
- [3]Rodriguez Vazquez v. Bostock, No. 25-6842 (9th Cir. July 30, 2026) · appellate opinion
- [4]
- [5]
- [6]
- [7]Cirrus Rojas v. Olson, No. 25-3127 (7th Cir. July 30, 2026) · appellate opinion
- [8]
- [9]Guerrero Orellana v. Moniz, Nos. 25-2152 and 26-1094 (1st Cir. August 13, 2026) · appellate opinion
- [10]
- [11]
- [12]
- [13]T.C. v. ICE officials, No. 1:26-cv-05000 (E.D.N.Y. September 8, 2026), ECF 13 · judicial opinion and order
- [14]
- [15]