A second Federal Appeals Court has ruled the Trump administration can detain illegal immigrants without bond, dealing another blow to activist groups and judges who have waged war on President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda.
The Trump administration has been hit with an onslaught of lawsuits following a July rule change related to detention authority for “applicants for admission,” reversing almost 30 years of precedent under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
The crux of the issue is whether illegal immigrants who evaded detection at the border have a right to a bond hearing.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the U.S. can detain immigrants who have lived in the county illegally for years without a bond hearing, signaling another legal victory for the Trump administration.
The ruling delivers a harsh blow to Minnesota’s extreme activism and efforts to circumvent federal immigration law, as federal district judges are bound to follow it, Politico reported.
The St. Louis-based 8th Circuit’s decision follows a 2-1 5th Circuit ruling last month that binds district court judges in Texas.
Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the 8th Circuit’s ruling as a “massive court victory against activist judges.”
“The law is very clear, but Democrats and activist judges haven’t wanted to enforce it. This administration WILL,” Bondi said on X. “Imagine how many illegal alien crimes could have been averted if the left had simply followed the law?”
A panel of Republican appointees handed down its decision last week, overturning a lower court ruling in Minnesota that had granted a detained immigrant the right to a bond hearing.
The 8th Circuit appeals panel agreed with the administration that federal law gives U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement the authority to detain people without giving them a bond hearing before an immigration judge.
The 8th Circuit’s ruling stems from a case involving Joaquin Herrera Avila of Mexico, who was apprehended in Minneapolis in August 2025 for lacking legal documents.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security detained Avila without bond and began deportation proceedings. Avila filed a petition seeking immediate release or a bond hearing.
A federal judge in Minnesota granted his petition, saying the law’s “detention without bond” provision did not apply to Avila. He had lived in the country for years without seeking naturalization, asylum or refugee status, so therefore he wasn’t “seeking admission.”
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, weighing whether illegal aliens already in the country are deemed to be “applicants for admission” and “seeking admission.”
Circuit Court Judge Bobby Shepherd, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote the majority opinion, joined by Judge L. Steven Grasz, a Trump appointee. Another Trump appointee on the panel, Judge Ralph Erickson, dissented.
“Avila does not contest that he has not been lawfully admitted into the country and thus remains an ‘applicant for admission,’” Shepherd wrote in the majority opinion.
“However, he argues that he is not subject to detention under § 1225(b)(2)(A) because, according to him, an alien only ‘seek[s] admission’ under the statute when he takes an ‘affirmative action’ to obtain admission into the country—not when he is merely present in the country without having been admitted.”
Under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, the statute requires the detention — without bond — of all “applicants for admission” to the United States while they are “seeking admission” to the country.
Historically, mandatory detention was limited to recent border crossers. Previous administrations typically granted bond to those without criminal convictions who were not flight risks.
In particular, this practice applied to those who evaded detection at the border and lived in the country for years, and sometimes decades. They were not “seeking admission” because they were already here, they reasoned.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled on a similar Texas case in February involving two illegal immigrants who had been in the country for years, the Associated Press reported. They were granted bond hearings and subsequently released, so the government appealed.
In that decision, the judges wrote that “While that is true, the government’s past practice has little to do with the statute’s text. The text says what it says, regardless of the decisions of prior Administrations.”
Specifically, circuit judge Edith H. Jones wrote in the 2-1 majority opinion that the Trump administration correctly interpreted the law, noting that “IIRIRA put aliens seeking admission lawfully on equal footing with those who entered without inspection. It seems strange to suggest that Congress would have preserved bond hearings exclusively for unlawful entrants.”
The issue of mandatory detention became another court fight after ICE’s acting director Todd Lyons announced interim guidance last July regarding mandatory detention, including for those already living in the United States.
Last September, the Justice Department-run Board of Immigration Appeals ruled on the new guidance, supporting mandatory detention for anyone in deportation proceedings who entered the U.S. “without inspection.”
The rule change prompted a flood of emergency lawsuits filed by ICE detainees who argued they were being unlawfully detained.
Immigrants have filed more than 30,000 habeas corpus petitions in federal court alleging illegal detention since Trump took office, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Many have succeeded.
Politico reported hundreds of people detained during the recent ICE crackdown in the Twin Cities have filed petitions to be released from custody. They challenged the administration’s interpretation of the law, and nearly every district judge in the state had sided with the petitioners.
Politico noted the two circuits that overturned lower court rulings are “widely seen as the most conservative in the country.” Similar cases are pending in several other circuits, including the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit and the Chicago-based 7th Circuit, which have seemed inclined to oppose the administration’s view.
Several Texas-based judges basically ignored the 5th Circuit’s ruling, ordering the release of detainees on due process grounds, which they say requires bond hearings for many of those detained.
Like the 5th Circuit, the 8th Circuit did not address the due process argument.
Politico reported immigrant rights advocates have asked the full bench of the 5th Circuit to take up the issue. The court has not yet ruled on that request. Lawyers handling the 8th Circuit case say they’re still assessing the decision and considering their next steps.
In a separate case earlier this month, the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the administration’s request to temporarily pause a judge’s order that blocked third-country deportations while the government pursues an appeal.
