A US appeals court ruled on Friday that President Donald Trump's administration is not required under the US Constitution to give detained immigrants a chance to seek release on bond.
In a 10-7 ruling powered by its conservative majority, the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the Constitution's Fifth Amendment due process protections do not require that immigration detainees receive bond hearings.
"To the extent petitioners seek to vindicate a liberty interest to be free from physical restraint in the most abstract sense, they can do so at any moment by agreeing to leave the country," US Circuit Judge Cory Wilson, a Trump appointee, wrote in the decision.
The ruling, if left to stand, would eliminate a key avenue for detained migrants in the three states under the 5th Circuit's jurisdiction — Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — to argue for release, especially if the US Supreme Court decides the administration's detention practice complies with immigration law.
The Supreme Court this month agreed to consider the issue, which has divided lower courts. Numerous lawsuits by migrants arguing they were being unlawfully detained have flooded the courts as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, implemented Trump's mass deportation agenda.
The Supreme Court is considering only whether such hearings are required by statute, not by the Constitution, the issue the 5th Circuit addressed with Friday's decision.
While the 5th Circuit in February had adopted the administration's reading of immigration law as requiring mandatory detention, a 2-1 panel of the court in July held that ICE could not constitutionally detain people for more than 90 days without providing hearings to argue for release on bond.
The decision, which came in lawsuits by two Mexican citizens and one Honduran, carried particular importance because Texas and Louisiana, within the 5th Circuit's jurisdiction, house the nation's largest numbers of immigration detainees.
But the full 5th Circuit agreed to rehear the case, and on Friday reversed course, concluding that detained immigrants are not constitutionally entitled to proceedings in immigration court beyond what Congress provided by statute.
"This ruling opens the door to more people being locked up for no reason, with devastating consequences for them, their loved ones and their community," Ellie Norton, a lawyer for the non-US citizens in the case at the National Immigration Project, said in a statement.
James Percival, the general counsel for the US Department of Homeland Security, in a social media post hailed what he called a "big win in the 5th Circuit on mandatory detention for illegal aliens."
Among the dissenting judges was US Circuit Judge Dana Douglas, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, who wrote that "unchecked, executive authority to arrest and detain, indefinitely, echoes fearfully from history."