A divided federal appeals court has ruled that the Trump administration cannot categorically deny bond hearings to immigrants arrested inside the country, rejecting the government's interpretation of federal detention law. Thursday's 2-1 decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the ninth appellate ruling against the mandatory-detention approach and adds to a nationwide split that may be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The case, Lopez Garcia v. Guadian, was brought on behalf of Oscar Enrique Lopez Garcia, a Washington D.C.-area resident of more than 30 years with no criminal record who was detained by ICE in October 2025, according to Migrant Insider. Lopez Garcia was arrested on his way to work despite having a U.S.-citizen spouse and children, the outlet reports. As ClickOnDetroit reports, the 4th Circuit's decision rejected the administration's interpretation of immigration law, ruling that holding immigrants without any chance for release on bond is illegal.
A Dispute Over Two Statutes
At the center of the case is a dispute over two provisions of federal immigration law: 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A), which mandates detention without bond for certain applicants seeking admission at the border, and 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), which provides for individualized bond hearings before immigration judges, according to Courthouse News Service. Section 1225 was historically applied to people arriving at the border, while Section 1226 generally governed interior apprehensions, the outlet reports.
Five presidential administrations over nearly 30 years after Congress enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 interpreted Section 1225 as applying to arriving noncitizens at the border, leaving people arrested inside the country subject to discretionary bond hearings under Section 1226(a), according to Courthouse News Service. The dispute intensified after ICE issued interim guidance in July 2025 and the Board of Immigration Appeals issued a precedent decision in Matter of Yajure Hurtado supporting the broader interpretation.
What official records show about detention capacity
The available ICE materials provide a December 31, 2024 reference point rather than a later total showing how the detained population changed. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, its public dashboards track arrests, detentions, removals and alternatives to detention as of that date. ICE says its system holds people subject to mandatory detention as well as people the agency determines pose a public-safety or flight risk during custody determinations. In the Washington region, ICE lists the Caroline Detention Facility in Bowling Green, Virginia, under its Washington Field Office. Caroline County's FY2025 budget describes the facility as a 336-bed correctional center that houses federal detainees under a contract with ICE.
The Trump administration has argued that Congress changed immigration law in 1996 to allow mandatory detention beyond the border, per the ClickOnDetroit report. But Judges Barbara Keenan, nominated by President Barack Obama, and Nicole Berner, nominated by President Joe Biden, wrote that Congress would have provided greater clarity in 1996 if it had intended to allow mandatory detention of millions of people. Judge Allison Rushing, nominated by President Donald Trump, dissented from the majority decision.
Judge Invokes Internment and Chinese Exclusion Era
In her majority opinion, Judge Berner placed the administration's interpretation in the context of earlier government detention policies, including Executive Order 9066, which led to the wartime detention of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese residents, and the late-19th-century detention of Chinese immigrants, according to MyNorthwest, citing AP News. Berner wrote that mass detention of marginalized individuals without due process “harkens back to some of the darkest moments in the country's history,” while emphasizing the potential scale of the administration's interpretation and its implications for the due process rights of millions of noncitizens, according to ClickOnDetroit's account of the ruling.
Federal government attorneys conceded during litigation that applying mandatory detention under Section 1225 to all interior residents who entered without inspection would subject roughly 2 million noncitizens nationwide to mandatory detention without bond eligibility, Migrant Insider reports. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that President Trump and Secretary Mullin are enforcing the law as written to keep America safe, and added that it remains confident in its legal position on mandatory detention, according to ClickOnDetroit.
A Deepening Nationwide Split
The 4th Circuit's ruling makes it the ninth federal appeals court to reject the interior mandatory detention policy, contrasting with rulings from the 5th and 8th Circuits and leaving due process rights dependent on where someone is arrested, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Immigrants in Texas and Louisiana now face additional hurdles to seek release compared with those in other parts of the country, per ClickOnDetroit, while immigrants in some regions continue to receive bond hearings as a matter of course.
Even in the 5th Circuit, which upheld the statutory mandatory detention framework, the court ruled on July 2, 2026, that the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause requires ICE to grant noncitizens an individualized bond hearing within 90 days of arrest, according to the National Immigration Project. That ruling stemmed from a consolidated appeal involving three fathers in Texas, the group notes.
Following ICE's July 2025 interim guidance and the Board of Immigration Appeals' endorsement in Matter of Yajure Hurtado, federal district court judges nationwide have ruled in favor of detained immigrants in more than 20,000 individual habeas corpus petitions challenging no-bond detentions, per Migrant Insider. Habeas corpus petitions have become the primary legal mechanism for detainees seeking bond hearings amid the standoff.
Supreme Court Review Looms
In July 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the circuit split over whether noncitizens arrested in the interior can be denied bond hearings, according to AP News, as cited by MyNorthwest. The appeals-court split has increased the odds that the Supreme Court will take up the issue, per ClickOnDetroit's reporting.
Michael K.T. Tan said the government's track record speaks for itself, according to ClickOnDetroit. The administration's July 2025 policy reinterpretation stripped bond hearing eligibility even from noncitizens with long-pending applications for legal status who have waited years due to administrative backlogs, the ACLU notes, adding that many affected individuals have deep family and employment ties in the U.S.
Two other federal appeals courts, the 5th and 8th Circuits, have upheld the administration's mandatory detention policy, according to ClickOnDetroit. The 4th Circuit ruling follows a string of similar rejections, including a Philadelphia appeals court defeat in August, a 10th Circuit rejection affecting Colorado, and a 9th Circuit rebuke joined by a Trump appointee. With nine circuits now against the policy and only two in favor, the geographic patchwork over who gets a bond hearing appears set to land before the nation's highest court.
