U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) says the Trump administration’s effort to deny bond hearings to immigrants arrested inside the United States is being set up for a Supreme Court fight — after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled 2-1 that two immigrants detained in Virginia were entitled to ask an immigration judge for release while their deportation cases proceed.
“Today, another court ruled against this policy, setting it up to be brought to the Supreme Court,” Jayapal wrote Thursday.
In February, I led 62 of my colleagues in demanding the Trump administration stop illegally detaining immigrants and denying bond hearings.
Today, another court ruled against this policy, setting it up to be brought to the Supreme Court.
Trump’s mass detention campaign must… pic.twitter.com/AQGFuqvJlq
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) September 10, 2026
The cases involved Oscar Enrique Lopez Garcia, who came to the U.S. from Guatemala as a child in 1996 and has lived in Washington, D.C., for more than 30 years, and Juan Jose Rivera, who came from El Salvador in 2005 and has lived in the U.S. for 20 years. Lawyers for the government did not contend that either man had committed a crime requiring mandatory detention, posed a flight risk, or presented a danger to the community.
ICE detained both men in October 2025 and held them without bond hearings. Federal district courts ordered the government to provide hearings, and immigration judges subsequently found that neither man posed a danger to the community or a flight risk. Both were released on bond in November.
[NOTE: A bond hearing does not end an immigration case or prevent deportation. It allows an immigration judge to decide whether a detained person may be released, sometimes after paying a bond, while the case continues.]
The dispute began after the Department of Homeland Security changed its interpretation of federal immigration law in July 2025. Under the new policy, immigrants who entered the country without inspection could be classified as “applicants for admission” and detained throughout their removal proceedings without an opportunity to seek bond—even if they had lived in the United States for years.
Writing for the Fourth Circuit majority, Judge Nicole Berner said a different section of the law governs people already living inside the country and permits bond. She wrote that the administration’s interpretation could produce “the single largest mass detention of human beings in our nation’s history.”
Biden-appointed Berner concluded: “Mass detention of marginalized individuals without due process harkens back to some of the darkest moments in our country’s history.” She cited the detention of Chinese immigrants in the late 1800s and the internment of nearly 120,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II.
The Department of Homeland Security defended its position, saying: “President Trump and Secretary Mullin are now enforcing the law as it was actually written to keep America safe.” DHS said it has asked the Supreme Court to resolve the disagreement.
Trump-appointed Fourth Circuit Judge Allison Rushing dissented. She wrote that the relevant law “requires the Government to detain aliens who illegally entered the United States pending the outcome of their removal proceedings.”
The Fourth Circuit became the ninth federal appeals court to reject the administration’s mandatory-detention interpretation, while two appellate courts have accepted it, according to the Associated Press. That division means access to bond hearings can depend on where an immigrant is detained and makes Supreme Court review increasingly likely.