The Second Circuit, led by a Trump appointee, unanimously blocked the administration's mandatory detention policy and restored bond hearings for long-term immigrants in three states.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously rejected the Trump administration's policy of mandatory detention for long-term interior immigrants, holding that the administration's reading of 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) conflicts with existing immigration law and would produce the broadest mass-detention-without-bond regime in American history [1]. The ruling restores individualized bond hearings for immigrants residing in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont who had been subject to detention without any opportunity to seek release [1]. The decision was authored by Judge Joseph Bianco, a Trump appointee, lending the ruling cross-ideological weight [2].
The case, *Barbosa da Cunha v. Freden*, arose from a challenge to the administration's application of § 1225(b)(2)(A), the provision governing inspection and detention of arriving aliens, to long-term residents of the interior who had never presented at a port of entry [1]. The Second Circuit affirmed the lower court's ruling, rejecting the government's statutory interpretation as incompatible with settled immigration law [1]. The ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and the New York Civil Liberties Union litigated the challenge; ACLU attorney Michael Tan was among counsel of record [1].
The ruling's substantive significance extends well beyond the three-state circuit. Federal appellate courts are now openly divided on whether § 1225(b)(2)(A) authorizes mandatory, indefinite detention for individuals who entered the country years or decades ago and have never been processed at the border [2]. The Eleventh Circuit has taken a posture more favorable to the administration's position, while the Second Circuit now joins a bloc of courts that read the statute to require bond hearings consistent with due process [2]. The circuit split raises the probability of Supreme Court review, particularly because the government's theory, if accepted, would expose millions of long-term residents to detention without any judicial check [1] [2].
ACLU counsel characterized the ruling as a rebuke of the administration's effort to eliminate bond hearings across entire categories of noncitizens [1]. The administration has not publicly announced whether it will seek en banc rehearing or certiorari, but the circuit conflict and the scale of the policy make further appellate proceedings likely [2]. Immigrants in the Second Circuit who were detained or at risk of detention under the challenged policy may now seek individualized bond hearings before immigration judges [1].
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