The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled on Thursday that the Trump administration's policy of detaining immigrants without a bond hearing is unconstitutional. A three-judge panel held that people arrested within the country on immigration charges must receive a bond hearing within 90 days.

The 71-page split decision covers Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi — the jurisdiction of the 5th Circuit — and directly affects thousands of immigrants currently in removal proceedings in those states. Late on Thursday, the appeals court temporarily withheld the ruling from taking effect.

What the policy changed

The dispute traces back to July 2025, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a policy memo reinterpreting the Immigration and Nationality Act. For decades before that memo, the statute operated with two broad categories of detainees.

The first category covered people who presented themselves to an immigration official upon entry. If an officer decided the person was not clearly admissible, the government could hold them in detention while they prepared their case before an immigration judge.

The second category covered people already living in the country who had entered or remained without legal authorization. Up until the summer of 2025, people in this category who faced removal proceedings could receive a bond hearing. If a judge determined they were not a threat or a flight risk, they could be released pending the outcome of their case. The bond requirement did not apply to people convicted of certain crimes, including burglary, theft or violent felonies.

The 2025 memo flipped that framework. Under the new interpretation, all immigrants without legal authorization fell into the first category — ineligible for bond, regardless of how long they had lived in the United States.

Who brought the case

The decision sided with three immigrant men living in Texas — Ignacio Sosnava Rodriguez, Alejandro Villegas Angel and Miguel Angel Gomez Alvarado. All three entered the U.S. more than a decade ago without legal authorization, are fathers of U.S. citizen children, and were arrested and detained after routine traffic stops, according to the National Immigration Project. None received an opportunity to argue before a judge that they were neither a flight risk nor a danger to their community. District courts in Texas had granted them relief from detention, and the federal government appealed.

Judge Leslie H. Southwick, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, wrote the decision. It reverses the practical impact of a February ruling by the same court, which had found that the federal statute drew no distinction between the two categories of arrestees and allowed the policy to stand. On Thursday, the panel found that while its earlier reading of the statutory text was correct, the February judges had not accounted for detainees' constitutional due process rights.

"For over a century, aliens' entitlement to due process has been governed by physical presence within the United States," Southwick wrote. The court reaffirmed physical presence as the determining factor for due process entitlement, even for a person in the country unlawfully.

The government had argued the men were never admitted by an immigration officer and therefore deserved no more due process than the statute provides for new arrivals.

The split panel

Judge James E. Graves, an Obama appointee, concurred but argued for a tighter timeline: "In my view, the time limit should be shorter. I would require currently detained noncitizens to receive a hearing within 30 days of their detention. And noncitizens who will be detained in the future should receive pre-deprivation due process."

Judge Cory T. Wilson, a Trump appointee, dissented. He wrote that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that detention without bond violated their due process rights and that the district courts' habeas grants "should be vacated."

Scale of the impact

Since the start of the second Trump administration, tens of thousands of detained immigrants have filed lawsuits challenging mandatory detention on constitutional grounds — nearly 2,000 of them in Louisiana. The detained population has grown from under 40,000 at the end of the Biden administration to more than 60,000 by the end of last month.

Ellie Norton, a senior attorney with the National Immigration Project who argued for the plaintiffs, said thousands of detained immigrants in the circuit will benefit from the ruling.

"Ignacio, Alejandro, and Miguel are fathers who have lived in Texas for more than a decade. They're the reason this court had to confront the question of whether the government can detain people like them without any checks and balances," Norton said. "Thousands of people in detention will benefit from what these three men were willing to fight for."

Rebecca Cassler, senior litigation attorney at the American Immigration Council, who also argued for the plaintiffs, framed the case around a single question: whether the government can detain someone without showing their imprisonment serves a purpose.

"Today's decision reaffirms that constitutional rights do not disappear simply because someone is in immigration proceedings," Cassler said. "The Government must provide a meaningful opportunity for people to challenge their detention."

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the department strongly disagrees with the decision and is confident in its legal position on mandatory detention.

"This legal position was the nail in the coffin for Biden's catch and release policies. That is why the left and their activist proxies on the judiciary are resisting it so vigorously. President Trump and Secretary Mullin are now enforcing the law as it was actually written to keep America safe," the spokesperson said.

What's next

Four other circuit courts have already rejected mandatory detention for immigrants who entered without legal authorization. DHS said it is seeking U.S. Supreme Court review of a similar 6th Circuit decision issued in May. The government has not formally indicated whether it will appeal the 5th Circuit ruling or seek a rehearing.

"As our record in the U.S. Supreme Court demonstrates, the law is on our side," the DHS spokesperson said.

The 5th Circuit is a critical venue: Texas and Louisiana hold the highest numbers of detainees of any states and anchor the administration's detention scheme. Immigrants in removal proceedings in those states should follow the court's docket and official ICE guidance, as the ruling's immediate effect remains stayed pending further action.