The Sixth Circuit's 2-1 ruling in Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft bars mandatory immigration detention without bond hearings, making it the third circuit to reject the Trump policy.
A divided Sixth Circuit panel ruled May 11 that the Trump administration cannot hold long-term U.S. residents in mandatory immigration detention without bond hearings, striking down a policy the government has applied to interior-dwelling immigrants who entered the country without inspection [1]. The 2-1 decision holds that such individuals are governed by 8 U.S.C. §1226(a), which permits bond hearings, rather than §1225(b)(2)(A), the no-bond provision the administration has invoked to justify indefinite detention pending removal proceedings [2].
The case, *Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft*, arose from a habeas petition filed on behalf of Juan Manuel Lopez-Campos and a certified class of similarly situated detainees held in the Sixth Circuit's four-state footprint covering Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee [2]. Judge Eric Clay authored the majority opinion, joined by Judge R. Guy Cole. Judge Eric Murphy dissented [1]. The ACLU of Michigan and the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project litigated the matter on behalf of the petitioner class against ICE [2].
The ruling's statutory logic is direct: immigrants who entered without inspection but have since established long-term residence in the interior are not "applicants for admission" under the plain text of §1225(b)(2)(A), and the government's effort to route them into that provision's mandatory-detention framework impermissibly strips them of the individualized bond determination §1226(a) guarantees [1]. The majority rejected the administration's reading as inconsistent with the statute's structure and with the due process interests of individuals who have built substantial ties to their communities [2]. The dissenters' position, consistent with holdings in the Fifth and Eighth Circuits, is that the government's classification authority is broad enough to subject this population to the §1225 regime regardless of how long they have resided here [3].
The Sixth Circuit's decision makes it the third federal appellate court to side against the administration on this question, joining the Second and Eleventh Circuits, while the Fifth and Eighth Circuits have upheld the mandatory-detention approach [3]. That 3-2 alignment across circuits, implicating the liberty interests of hundreds of thousands of detained immigrants, creates the kind of entrenched, multi-circuit disagreement that draws Supreme Court review [3]. Practitioners and the government alike have flagged the October 2026 term as the likely vehicle for resolution, though no certiorari petition has been filed as of publication [3].
The immediate effect is a binding rule across the Sixth Circuit: detained individuals in that class must receive individualized bond hearings [1]. The government is expected to seek en banc reconsideration or move directly to certiorari [3].
—