A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday, October 23, that the Trump administration is not required under the Constitution to give detained immigrants a chance to seek release on bond.
In a 10-7 decision powered by its conservative majority, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Fifth Amendment's 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," U.S. 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. Numerous lawsuits by migrants arguing they were being unlawfully detained have flooded the courts as Immigration and Customs Enforcement has implemented the administration's mass deportation agenda.
The U.S. Supreme Court this month agreed to consider the issue, which has divided lower courts. The Supreme Court is considering only whether such hearings are required by statute, not by the Constitution — the question the 5th Circuit decided on Friday.
The 5th Circuit had in February adopted the administration's reading of immigration law as requiring mandatory detention, though 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.