Supreme Court takes up Trump immigration detention policy

The Supreme Court agreed Thursday to decide whether the Trump administration can detain immigrants throughout their deportation proceedings without giving them a chance to seek release on bond. Its ruling could affect thousands of cases challenging the policy across the country.

The dispute centers on immigrants who entered the United States illegally but have lived in the country for years. Under previous practice, many could ask an immigration judge for a bond hearing and argue that they were not a flight risk or a danger to the public. Last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement tightened its rules, saying people in that position were subject to mandatory detention. Immigration authorities can still release detainees on parole for humanitarian or public-interest reasons, CBS News reported.

Federal appeals courts have split over the policy. According to CBS News, two appeals courts have allowed mandatory detention without bond, while nine others have ruled that certain immigrants must receive bond hearings or be released while their deportation cases proceed. The administration argues that a provision of federal immigration law permits detention without a hearing even when an immigrant was apprehended far from the border years after entering the country.

The case before the justices involves Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, a Brazilian citizen who entered the United States more than 20 years ago. He was detained after a traffic stop in Norwood, Massachusetts, in September 2025. According to CBS News, court papers say he has never been convicted of a crime, applied for asylum in 2016 and received a valid work permit.

An immigration judge denied Barbosa da Cunha’s request for a bond hearing. He challenged that decision in federal court, arguing that his detention was unlawful and violated the Constitution’s Due Process Clause. A judge in New York ordered the government to provide a bond hearing within 10 days, and he was released on bond in late October 2025, CBS News reported. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit subsequently rejected the administration’s interpretation of the law.

The appeals court called the policy the “broadest mass-detention-without-bond mandate in our nation’s history for millions of noncitizens.” It warned that the administration’s reading of the law could strain detention facilities, separate families and disrupt communities, according to CBS News.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, urging Supreme Court review, called the dispute a “critically important question of immigration law.” He argued that allowing bond hearings for people who evaded detention when they entered the country creates a “perverse incentive” by treating them more leniently than people detained at the border. He also said the litigation was “disrupting the orderly administration of immigration law,” NBC News reported.

Lawyers for the challengers, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, called the policy a “radical reinterpretation” of immigration law. They said some detainees crossed the border as young children and argued that those challenging their confinement are neither flight risks nor dangers to the public, according to NBC News.

The case does not address the separate rules governing detention of immigrants convicted of certain crimes. The justices will hear arguments during their new term, which begins Monday. A ruling is expected by the end of June.