The Trump administration wants to make millions of immigrants who entered the United States without legal authorization ineligible for bond hearings. This means they would need to remain in immigration detention as they fight deportation proceedings in court, which can take months and in some cases years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson told NBC News in an email Tuesday that the recently issued guidance “closes a loophole” in immigration law that had long been applied mostly to detain those who had recently arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll aliens seeking to enter our country in an unlawful manner or for illicit purposes shall be treated equally under the law, while still receiving due process,\u201d the ICE spokesperson wrote. \u201cIt is aligned with the nation\u2019s long-standing immigration law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Washington Post first reported about the new ICE memo instructing immigration officials to keep immigrants detained \u201cfor the duration of their removal proceedings<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s beyond anyone\u2019s notice that we are starting to see policies to keep people detained and keep people detained longer,\u201d <\/strong>Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practice and policy counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told NBC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing the administration\u2019s goal of detaining and deporting more people grow,\u201d Dojaquez-Torres added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new guidance seems to give immigration authorities broader discretion to detain other types of immigrants \u2014 such as those who have lived in the U.S. for decades and have U.S. citizen children, and may potentially have legal pathways to remain in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bond hearings help detainees show to immigration judges that they \u201care not a flight risk or a public safety risk,\u201d <\/strong>Dojaquez-Torres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the new policy guidance, \u201cthe judge doesn\u2019t even have the power to hear your bond case,\u201d Dojaquez-Torres said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re the best person in the world, a judge won\u2019t be able to hear your case\u2026 If they are agreeing with DHS\u2019 view.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a Tuesday post on X<\/a>, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said President Donald Trump and his administration plan on “keeping these criminals and lawbreakers off American streets.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Now thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill,” which set aside $45 billion to build new immigration detention centers, “we will have plenty of bed space to do so,” DHS wrote on social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rebekah Wolf, director of immigration justice campaign at the American Immigration Council, told NBC News the organization has already received reports from across the nation of some immigration judges who are already \u201caccepting the argument\u201d from DHS and ICE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd because the memo isn\u2019t public, we don\u2019t even know what law the government is relying on to make the claim that everyone who has ever entered without inspection is subject to mandatory detention,\u201d Wolf said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There have also been reports of other immigration judges who have disagreed with the new guidance and have granted a bond hearing since the policy went into effect last week, Dojaquez-Torres said. In these cases, \u201cICE has appealed and refused to release people in the interim until the appeal has been finalized.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the memo, ICE acting Director Todd M. Lyons, who oversees the nation\u2019s immigration detention facilities, wrote that the new policy will likely face legal challenges, The Washington Post reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n