Appeals Court Split On Ice’s Mandatory Detention Policy

A federal appeals court deadlocked over the Trump administration’s bid to lock up the majority of people it is seeking to deport, without an opportunity for release on bond.

The divided panel of the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appealssplintered over the administration's novel interpretation of 30-year-old immigration laws, with one judge saying it had subjected millions of people to being detained by ICE without due process, one judge siding with the administration’s view and a third declining to endorse either view.

The opinion’s author, Judge John Lee, a Biden appointee, emphasized that no prior administration believed there was a mass detention mandate in the 1996 law that Trump administration officials have claimed justifies their new policy. And despite the complexities and complicated language of the law, it’s simply implausible that Congress passed a sweeping detention mandate 30 years ago without anyone noticing, the court said.

“It is unreasonable to think that Congress in 1996 intended to subject millions of noncitizens to mandatory detention in the oblique, off-handed fashion that [Trump administration officials] claim,” wrote Lee, a wrote. Judge Thomas Kirsch, a Trump appointee, dissented from the decision, while Judge Doris Pryor, another Biden appointee, said declined to endorse

The ruling exacerbates a division among courts that could supercharge the issue’s path to the Supreme Court. Thoughfederal district court judges have overwhelmingly rejected the Trump administration’s approach, federal appeals courts are split. The administration prevailed at the Louisiana-based 5th and St. Louis-based 8th Circuits, winning 2-1 rulings in each. But last week, the New York-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals became the first to reject the administration's approach with a unanimous ruling.

A judge on the Massachusetts-based 1st Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday predicted that the issue is bound to go before the justices. “The Supreme Court’s going to have to decide this,” Judge Sandra Lynch, a Clinton appointee, mused during arguments on the issue in her court.

By next week, nearly every circuit court in the country will have heard arguments on the issue, with at least seven more rulings in the pipeline — unless the Supreme Court steps in first.

Congress passed the 1996 immigration law in part to streamline the deportation process and set up an expedited system to remove people who recently crossed the border. That law requires immigration authorities to detain — without bond — anyone who crosses the border and is “seeking admission” to the U.S. without authorization.

For decades, administrations of both parties applied this mandate to people who had newly arrived in the country, perhaps by crossing the southern border. Those residing in the country’s interior, often for years, were categorized under a different statute that allowed them to seek a bond hearing before an immigration judge before ICE could lock them up.

But in July, ICE adopted a new interpretation of the law, declaring that anyone targeted for deportation by ICE would be treated as an “applicant for admission,” subjecting them to mandatory detention. That decision was backed up in September by the Board of Immigration Appeals, a panel of immigration judges who set national policy for executive branch-run immigration courts that handle deportation proceedings.

But the policy has drawn widespread rejection and condemnation by federal courts across the country. A POLITICO analysis has found 425 federal district court judges who have rejected the Trump administration’s position, compared to 49 who have sided with the administration.