Appeals Court Rejects Bond Hearings for Detained Migrants
The full Fifth Circuit ruled 10-7 that the Constitution does not entitle immigrants held while their deportation cases proceed to a hearing on release, reversing a July panel decision in the region that holds more immigration detainees than any other.
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled 10-7 that immigrants detained while their deportation cases move through immigration court have no right under the Constitution to a hearing where a judge decides whether they can be released on bond. The court reversed rulings by two Texas district judges in three cases that had ordered men freed and barred further detention without such hearings.
The ruling applies in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, the states the court covers, which include the places holding the largest numbers of immigration detainees in the country. It overturns a July decision by a three-judge panel of the same court that said Immigration and Customs Enforcement could not hold people longer than 90 days without a bond hearing.
The ruling does not settle the statutory question. The Supreme Court agreed this month to decide whether federal immigration law itself requires bond hearings, a separate issue from the constitutional one the Fifth Circuit decided. Judge Cory Wilson wrote the majority opinion. The Department of Homeland Security's general counsel called the ruling a "big win," and a lawyer for the detained men said it "opens the door to more people being locked up for no reason."
New Orleans — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting with all 17 of its active judges, has ruled that immigrants held under the government's mandatory-detention reading of immigration law are not entitled by the Constitution to individual hearings on whether they are dangerous or likely to flee.
What the court decided
"We now conclude that Petitioners were not entitled to individual hearings on their dangerousness or flight risk before they could be lawfully detained by immigration authorities pending their removal proceedings," Judge Cory T. Wilson wrote for the majority. "Moreover, the duration of Petitioners' detention presented no constitutional issues warranting habeas relief." The court reversed the lower-court decisions and vacated the orders that had freed the men.
The three men in the consolidated cases are two Mexican citizens and one Honduran, each of whom had lived in the United States without legal status for years. One, Ignacio Sosnava Rodriguez, had lived in the country for more than 22 years before ICE detained him after a traffic stop in December 2025, according to the opinion.
How it got here
In July a divided three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Fifth Amendment's due-process protections required bond hearings and set a 90-day limit for holding people without one. The full court then chose on its own to rehear the case, put the release orders on hold, and heard arguments on September 24. The vote was 10-7, with Judge Richman joining the result but not the opinion's reasoning.
According to Reuters, the ruling removes a key route for detainees in the three states to seek release, especially if the Supreme Court rules that the administration's detention practice complies with immigration law. The justices agreed this month to take up that statutory question, which has split lower courts.
What each side said
James Percival, general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, called it a "big win in the 5th Circuit on mandatory detention for illegal aliens." Ellie Norton, a lawyer for the men at the National Immigration Project, said in a statement: "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." In dissent, Judge Dana Douglas wrote that "unchecked, executive authority to arrest and detain, indefinitely, echoes fearfully from history."