On Thursday, July 30, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2 to 1 that the federal government cannot subject immigrants who entered without authorization and were later arrested inside the country to mandatory detention without a bond hearing. The case is Rodriguez Vazquez v. Bostock, brought on behalf of a class of people held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington. The panel affirmed a lower court ruling.
The majority opinion was written by Circuit Judge Daniel Bress, an appointee of President Trump. Bress wrote that the government’s reading would “require the mass detention of unadmitted aliens present in the United States” and represent a sharp break from past practice. He noted that the government’s position implies Congress made a major change to immigration law in 1996 that then went unnoticed by the executive branch for three decades.
The Department of Homeland Security said it strongly disagrees with the panel and remains confident in its legal position.
Background
Immigration detention has long worked on a distinction between where a person was arrested. Those stopped at the border have generally been held without the option of bond. Those arrested in the interior, particularly people without criminal records, were generally able to seek a bond hearing from an immigration judge while their cases proceeded.
In July 2025, immigration officials issued guidance extending mandatory detention to people arrested in the interior. The legal argument rests on the term “seeking admission.” The government’s position is that a person who entered without authorization has never been formally admitted, and therefore remains someone seeking admission no matter how long they have lived in the country, which places them in the mandatory detention category.
That reading has produced what Bress described as thousands of habeas petitions filed in federal courts around the country by people seeking bond hearings.
The courts have divided sharply. The Fifth Circuit and the Eighth Circuit have sided with the government. The Second, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits have sided with the detainees. That is five to two, and the Ninth Circuit’s decision is the most recent.
The Eighth Circuit case illustrates the stakes. It involved Joaquin Herrera Avila, a Mexican national who first entered in 2006 and was arrested during a traffic stop in Minneapolis in August 2025 after living in the United States for roughly two decades. A district judge had ordered his release on a $7,500 bond. The Eighth Circuit reversed 2 to 1, with Judge Bobby Shepherd writing that being admitted does not simply mean being present. Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi called that ruling a major court victory.
What Different Sides Are Saying
The administration says it is enforcing the law as written. DHS framed the policy as following statutory text that previous administrations declined to apply. This is a real argument and not a frivolous one, since two appeals courts have accepted it. It also runs into the point Bress raised: if the 1996 statute plainly required this, it is difficult to explain why six administrations of both parties read it otherwise for thirty years. Neither side disputes the thirty-year practice; they dispute what it proves.
Critics say the policy amounts to detention without individualized review. The practical effect is that a person with no criminal record who has lived in the country for twenty years can be held throughout removal proceedings with no hearing on whether they are a flight risk or a danger. A bond hearing does not guarantee release. It provides a judge with the opportunity to decide.
On the significance of Bress’s appointment. Both sides have made something of this. Critics point to it as evidence the policy fails on legal grounds rather than partisan ones. Supporters of the policy note that a single judge does not represent an appointing president, which is correct. What can be said factually is that the split does not track appointing party cleanly in either direction, and that the strongest judicial rejection so far came from a judge this administration’s ally placed on the bench.
Conservative outlets have characterized the ruling as resting on the fact that no prior president did this. That is a partial reading of the opinion. Bress treated the thirty-year practice as strong evidence about what the statute means, not as the sole basis for the decision. The distinction between evidence of meaning and a rule that past practice binds future presidents matters, and the shorthand collapses it.
Both sides agree on one thing: this is heading to the Supreme Court. A circuit split this wide on a question affecting thousands of pending cases is close to a textbook candidate for review.
Note on Scope
Circuit rulings bind only their own territory. The Ninth Circuit covers California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and Hawaii. Someone arrested in Minnesota, within the Eighth Circuit, faces the opposite rule. Whether a person gets a bond hearing currently depends on geography, which is exactly the condition Supreme Court review exists to resolve.
Some coverage this week described two appeals courts rejecting the policy on the same day. We were able to confirm the Ninth Circuit ruling of July 30 in detail. We could not independently verify a second ruling issued that same day, and the Eighth Circuit decision often cited alongside it dates from March 2026 and went the other way. We are reporting only what we could confirm.
Related Links
- Ninth Circuit rejects Trump’s no-bail immigration detention policy (Courthouse News Service)
- Appeals court rejects the expansion of mandatory detention (Associated Press via Washington Times, including the DHS response)
- Ninth Circuit says the policy goes against longstanding precedent (SFist)
- Ninth Circuit rules against mandatory detention (Gateway Pundit, which opposes the ruling, included for the critical view)
- Eighth Circuit rules immigrants can be detained without bond (The Center Square, on the ruling that went the other way)
- Eighth Circuit: no bond for immigrants caught in the interior (with detail on the Herrera Avila case)
Discussion Questions
- Should where someone was arrested determine whether they can ask for release?
- What does a bond hearing actually decide?
- If a law went unenforced this way for thirty years, what does that tell you about what it means?
- Should a person’s length of residence matter in a detention decision?
- Is it a problem that the rule differs depending on which state you are in?
- Does it change your view that a Trump-appointed judge wrote this opinion?
- Who should resolve a disagreement between appeals courts?
- How would you weigh the cost of detention against the risk that someone does not appear in court?
- Should Congress clarify the statute rather than leaving it to courts?
- Imagine you are an immigration judge with a bond hearing in front of you. What would you want to know?
