Federal Appeals Court Rejects Detention of Illegal Immigrants Living in US Without Bond

A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s no-bond policy of detaining illegal immigrants living in the United States while they go through removal proceedings.

A divided three-judge panel for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that the federal government’s interpretation of immigration law does not apply to illegal noncitizens already within the country as opposed to those at the border.

“Simply put, the language that Congress has chosen to use does not grant to the Executive unfettered authority to detain, without the possibility of bond, every unadmitted alien present in the country,” U.S. District Judge Stanley Marcus wrote. “Nowhere in the text, structure, or history of [immigration law] does that reading find steady footing.”

Marcus was joined in the ruling by U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenbaum in rejecting the Trump administration’s interpretation of a specific provision within the Immigration and Nationality Act that was enacted by Congress in 1996.

The law is known as the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

The act requires federal immigration authorities to detain illegal aliens without bond who are seeking unlawful entry into the country. The 11th Circuit said this does not apply to illegal aliens already residing in the United States.

“The question we face today is whether unadmitted aliens found in the interior of the United States are eligible for bond while they go through immigration proceedings. For nearly thirty years, the answer to that question was, for most aliens, ‘yes,’” the court said. “Last year, the Department of Homeland Security took a different view.”

Judge Barbara Lagoa dissented, backing Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s policy of detaining without bond any illegal immigrants in the United States—not just at the border. She cast blame on prior administrations for not properly enforcing the law.

“The Executive’s failure to enforce a statute cannot retroactively narrow its meaning,” Lagoa wrote. “If anything, the population’s growth underscores the consequences of non-enforcement rather than the statute’s intended scope.”

The 11th Circuit’s ruling deepens a divide on an issue that’s been supported by some circuits and rejected in others, setting it on a path likely to be taken up by the Supreme Court.

Hundreds of district courts and four federal appeals courts have weighed in, the 11th Circuit wrote.

On Tuesday, the Seventh Circuit was split in rejecting the Trump administration policy. The Second Circuit has also rejected it.

The Seventh Circuit said the federal government lacked the authority “to place the individuals at issue, all of whom were already within the United States, under mandatory detention.”

U.S. Circuit Judge John Lee took a similar stance with Judge Marcus on the 11th Circuit, writing that the federal law was not used by prior administrations in the way the current administration is applying it.

“In summary, the text, statutory context, legislative history, and long-standing Executive practice all confirm that [the legislation] applies to ‘applicants for admission’ who are seeking lawful entry at the border or ports of entry and not to noncitizens unlawfully living in the country’s interior,” Lee said.

At that time, Lee wrote, it is “unreasonable to think” that Congress intended “to subject millions of noncitizens to mandatory detention in the oblique, off-handed fashion that” the Trump administration claims.

U.S. Circuit Judge Doris Pryor concurred in part with Lee.

Pryor wrote that the federal immigration law only applied to immigrants “at the country’s border and shores” and not those within the United States.

Judge Thomas Kirsch II dissented and agreed with the federal government’s stance.

Meanwhile, the Fifth and Eighth circuits have ruled in favor of the Trump administration.

In the Eighth Circuit’s decision on March 25, it overturned a lower court’s ruling in favor of an illegal Mexican immigrant who had lived in the United States for years.

Because the man had lived in the country for years and had not sought legal status, the lower court said he was not seeking admission.

But a majority of judges for the Eighth Circuit rejected that, saying the Trump administration is correctly applying the law in question. Illegal immigrants in the United States are seeking admission even if they do not apply for legal status, the court said.