Appeals Court Rules Against Ice’s Mandatory Detention Policy

A federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s bidto lock up the majority of people it is seeking to deport without an opportunity for release on bond — even if they have no criminal records and have resided in the country for decades.

In a 3-0 ruling, a panel of the New York-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals found that ICE’s policy was based on a flawed, implausible and unprecedented interpretation of decades-old laws. But more fundamentally, the panel said the Trump administration’s position would raise acute constitutional concerns by instituting “the broadest mass detention-without-bond mandate in our Nation’s history for millions of noncitizens.”

“The government’s interpretation … would send a seismic shock through our immigration detention system and society, straining our already overcrowded detention infrastructure, incarcerating millions, separating families, and disrupting communities,” Judge Joseph Bianco, a Trump appointee, wrote for the panel. “If Congress meant to achieve such a radical break from the past, it would not have done so in such an indirect and ambiguous way.”

Bianco was joined by Clinton appointee Jose Cabranes and Biden appointee Alison Nathan. It’s the first appellate court ruling rejecting the Trump administration’s view, even though district court judges across the country have widely concluded that ICE’s policy is illegal and unconstitutional.

The ruling also puts the 2nd Circuit at odds with recent rulings by the Louisiana-based 5th Circuit andthe Missouri-based 8th Circuit, which sided with the Trump administration’s view, a split that could put the long-simmering dispute on a trajectory to the Supreme Court.