Whether President Trump’s immigration crackdown can keep immigrants here illegally locked up for their entire deportation case, with no chance to ask for release, is now in the hands of the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the fight on Thursday, October 1. The justices stepped in because lower courts have split sharply over the policy.
Story Snapshot
- The case is Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, and arguments will come in the Court’s new term, which opens Monday, October 5.
- The policy holds everyone in the country illegally in detention through the whole removal case, with no bond hearing.
- Two federal appeals courts, the 5th and 8th Circuits, upheld the policy; nine others ruled that certain immigrants must get bond hearings or be released.
- The man at the center of the case is a Brazilian citizen who came here illegally more than 20 years ago and has no criminal convictions.
What The Supreme Court Agreed To Weigh
Under the policy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds every immigrant in the country illegally for the full length of the removal case, the legal process that decides whether a person is deported. That includes people who have lived here for years. Parole, a case-by-case release for humanitarian or public-interest reasons, is still available. The administration bases the policy on a 1996 immigration law.
The policy ended a long practice. Before it, immigrants who had lived here illegally for many years were usually eligible for a bond hearing. A bond hearing is a session before an immigration judge where the person tries to show they will not run and can stay free, often after posting money as a guarantee, while the deportation case goes on. Earlier administrations typically allowed these hearings for people with no criminal record who were arrested away from the border.
The Second Circuit Drew A Line Against No-Bond Detention
Among the courts that ruled against the policy, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals rejected it in April and called it the “broadest mass-detention-without-bond mandate in our nation’s history for millions of noncitizens.” It warned the policy would strain “our already overcrowded detention infrastructure,” separate families and disrupt communities.
Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, the immigrant in the case, came to the United States illegally more than two decades ago. He applied for asylum in 2016 and received a work permit. ICE detained him during a traffic stop in Massachusetts in 2025 and started removal proceedings against him.
What The Administration Says The Law Requires
The administration says the split among the courts is “disrupting the orderly administration of immigration law” and has created an “unworkable patchwork of inconsistent immigration enforcement.” In the 5th and 8th Circuits, immigrants accused of entering and staying illegally must stay detained during their deportation cases. In the nine circuits that ruled the other way, judges have ordered bond hearings or release.
The stakes for enforcement are large. ICE held more than 46,000 people for removal in July, up from about 43,000 in June, according to reports. Thousands of court challenges to mandatory detention have piled up on federal prosecutors across the country, and the Supreme Court’s ruling will set one rule for all of them.
Why Conservatives Should Care
This case will decide whether the administration can enforce immigration law the way it reads the 1996 statute, or whether courts can require bond hearings that let detainees go free while their cases drag on. Holding people until their cases end is meant to make sure they show up and are removed if they lose. Consistent rules matter, and a detainee’s fate should not depend on which part of the country he was arrested in.
Critics call the policy mass detention and point to long-time residents with clean records who are now held without a hearing. The Supreme Court now has the chance to settle the fight for the whole country. Its answer will decide whether Trump’s detention crackdown stands as written or must make room for bond hearings.
