Introduction

On April 28, 2026, a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit handed down its decision in Barbosa Da Cunha v. Lyons, No. 25-3141 (2d Cir. Apr. 28, 2026), squarely rejecting the Department of Homeland Security’s (“DHS”) sweeping reinterpretation of the mandatory detention provision found at INA § 235(b)(2)(A), 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A). Writing for the panel, Circuit Judge Joseph F. Bianco — a President Trump appointee — refused to endorse what he characterized as “what would be the broadest mass-detention-without-bond mandate in our Nation’s history for millions of noncitizens.”1

The Second Circuit’s decision creates a clear and acknowledged conflict with two prior decisions that had embraced the Government’s position: Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, No. 25-20496 (5th Cir. Feb. 6, 2026), in which a divided Fifth Circuit panel upheld the policy in a 2–1 ruling authored by Judge Edith H. Jones; and Herrera Avila v. Bondi, No. 25-3248 (8th Cir. Mar. 25, 2026), in which a divided Eighth Circuit panel reached the same result, also 2–1, in an opinion by Judge Bobby E. Shepherd.2 With three circuits now divided, the Supreme Court of the United States is well-positioned to take up the question — and likely will, given that the issue affects the bond eligibility of an estimated millions of long-term residents who entered the United States without inspection (“EWI”).

This article explores the statutory and historical background of the controversy; summarizes the three appellate decisions; compares the competing modes of statutory analysis adopted by each circuit; and offers practical guidance to immigration practitioners representing detained noncitizens in jurisdictions across the country. Readers may wish to consult our prior coverage of Herrera Avila v. Bondi published on myattorneyusa.com for additional analysis of the Eighth Circuit decision.3

Statutory Framework and Three Decades of Settled Practice

A. The Two Detention Regimes

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, as substantially amended by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”), Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-546, establishes two principal detention regimes for noncitizens in removal proceedings.

Section 235 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. § 1225, governs the inspection, detention, and removal of noncitizens classified as “applicants for admission.” Section 235(a)(1), 8 U.S.C. § 1225(a)(1), defines an “applicant for admission” as “[a]n alien present in the United States who has not been admitted or who arrives in the United States.” Section 235(b)(2)(A), 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A), in turn directs that “[i]n the case of an alien who is an applicant for admission, if the examining immigration officer determines that an alien seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted, the alien shall be detained for a [removal] proceeding” (emphasis added). The Supreme Court has held that detention under § 1225(b) is mandatory and that immigration judges (“IJs”) lack statutory authority to grant bond in such cases. See Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U.S. 281, 297–300 (2018).

By contrast, INA § 236(a), 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), authorizes the Attorney General to detain a noncitizen “pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed from the United States,” and expressly permits the Attorney General to release the noncitizen on bond or conditional parole. Implementing regulations vest IJs with authority to redetermine custody for noncitizens detained under § 1226(a). See 8 C.F.R. §§ 236.1(d), 1003.19, 1236.1(d). Section 236(c), 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c), in turn carves out a narrow category of noncitizens convicted of specified criminal offenses for whom detention is mandatory and bond unavailable. See Demore v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510, 521 (2003).

B. The Pre-2025 Consensus

For nearly three decades following IIRIRA’s enactment, both the Executive Branch and the federal judiciary uniformly understood § 1225(b)(2) to apply to noncitizens encountered at or near a port of entry, while § 1226(a) applied to noncitizens apprehended in the interior of the country. As far back as the implementing regulations promulgated in 1997, the Immigration and Naturalization Service expressly stated that “[d]espite being applicants for admission, aliens who are present without having been admitted or paroled (formerly referred to as aliens who entered without inspection) will be eligible for bond and bond redetermination.” Inspection and Expedited Removal of Aliens; Detention and Removal of Aliens; Conduct of Removal Proceedings; Asylum Procedures, 62 Fed. Reg. 10312, 10323 (Mar. 6, 1997). That interpretation persisted across five presidential administrations, including the first Trump administration, with no contrary agency or congressional action.4

C. The 2025 About-Face: Lyons Memo, Q. Li, and Yajure Hurtado

In the summer of 2025, DHS reversed course. ICE Acting Director Todd M. Lyons issued internal guidance directing field offices to detain EWI noncitizens encountered in the interior under § 1225(b)(2)(A) without bond eligibility. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) ratified the new approach in two precedential decisions: Matter of Q. Li, 29 I&N Dec. 66 (BIA 2025) (May 15, 2025), and — most consequentially — Matter of Yajure Hurtado, 29 I&N Dec. 216 (BIA 2025) (Sept. 5, 2025). In Yajure Hurtado, the Board held that “[b]ased on the plain language of section 235(b)(2)(A) of the [INA], 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) (2018), Immigration Judges lack authority to hear bond requests or to grant bond to aliens who are present in the United States without admission.” 29 I&N Dec. at 216.5

The new policy provoked a tidal wave of habeas corpus litigation under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. By the time the Fifth Circuit decided Buenrostro-Mendez, more than 350 federal district court judges had ruled at least 2,400 times against the Government’s reading of the statute — including more than a dozen Trump appointees. Only two district judges had sided with the Government.6 A nationwide declaratory judgment in Maldonado Bautista v. Noem, No. 2:25-cv-09793 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 25, 2025), additionally enjoined the Government from applying Yajure Hurtado to a certified class of detainees, although the Government has continued to litigate the issue circuit-by-circuit notwithstanding that order.7

Compounding the legal complexity, Congress in January 2025 enacted the Laken Riley Act, Pub. L. No. 119-1, 139 Stat. 3 (2025), which amended INA § 236(c) to mandate detention of certain EWI noncitizens charged with or convicted of theft, burglary, assault on a peace officer, and any offense causing death or serious bodily injury. As discussed below, both sides in the circuit split have invoked the Laken Riley Act to support diametrically opposed structural readings of the statute.

The Three Circuit Decisions

A. Fifth Circuit — Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi (Feb. 6, 2026)

In Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, No. 25-20496, 2026 WL _ (5th Cir. Feb. 6, 2026), a divided three-judge panel became the first circuit to address the merits of the Government’s expanded reading of § 1225(b)(2)(A). Judge Edith H. Jones, joined by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, reversed two consolidated district court orders that had granted bond hearings to long-term EWI petitioners Victor Buenrostro-Mendez (who entered in 2009) and Jose Padron Covarrubias (who entered in 2001). Judge Dana M. Douglas dissented.

The majority’s reasoning proceeded in three principal steps. First, the panel held that § 1225(a)(1)’s definition of “applicant for admission” — which textually encompasses “an alien present in the United States who has not been admitted” — is fully coextensive with the phrase “alien seeking admission” in § 1225(b)(2)(A). “There is no material disjunction — by the terms of the statute or the English language — between the concept of ‘applying’ for something and ‘seeking’ something,” the majority reasoned (quoting Garibay-Robledo v. Noem, No. 1:25-CV-177-H, 2026 WL 81679, at *5 (N.D. Tex. Jan. 9, 2026)).8

Second, the majority drew heavily on Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U.S. 281, 297–300 (2018), in which the Supreme Court rejected a constitutional-avoidance reading that would have implied periodic bond hearings into § 1225(b). The Fifth Circuit interpreted Jennings as a strong textual signal that § 1225(b) means what it says: mandatory detention with no statutory right to bond.

Third, the panel addressed the structural objection that the Laken Riley Act’s expansion of § 1226(c) to certain EWI offenders would be rendered superfluous if all EWI noncitizens were already subject to mandatory detention under § 1225. The majority responded that the Laken Riley Act “did have a substantial effect when passed insofar as it required the detention without bond or parole of certain aliens the administration was then treating as bond-eligible.” In the panel’s view, the Act merely codified detention authority that the Executive had been declining to fully exercise.

Judge Douglas’s pointed twenty-two page dissent argued that IIRIRA was passed “in part out of a desire to equalize the treatment of noncitizens presenting at ports of entry for inspection and those apprehended in the interior after effecting an unlawful entry,” not to subject the latter to mandatory detention en masse. She emphasized that Congress’s use of the present participle “seeking” denotes “present action” — someone presently trying to gain admission — and that the majority’s reading would render the words “seeking admission” in § 1225(b)(2)(A) wholly superfluous in violation of Carr v. United States, 560 U.S. 438, 448 (2010). She further observed that the majority’s reading “would have required the detention of millions of people, whereas Congress specifically gave the Attorney General authority to defer the agency’s much more modest implementation of § 1226(c)’s new detention mandate, which affected only persons subject to removal based on certain criminal offenses — an estimated 45,000 people in total.”

B. Eighth Circuit — Herrera Avila v. Bondi (Mar. 25, 2026)

Seven weeks later, the Eighth Circuit followed the Fifth in Herrera Avila v. Bondi, No. 25-3248, 2026 WL _ (8th Cir. Mar. 25, 2026). Judge Bobby E. Shepherd, a George W. Bush appointee, joined by Judge L. Steven Grasz (a Trump appointee), reversed a Minnesota district court order that had granted habeas relief to Joaquin Herrera Avila, a Mexican national who had lived in the United States for nearly twenty years and had a single DUI on his record. Judge Ralph R. Erickson — himself a Trump appointee — dissented.

The eleven-page majority opinion adhered closely to the Fifth Circuit’s analytical framework, citing Buenrostro-Mendez on virtually every page. Judge Shepherd reasoned that “being ‘admitted’ does not merely mean being present in the United States. Under immigration law, it signifies having made a lawful entry into the country.” He further concluded that “in distinguishing an alien ‘who has not been admitted’ from one ‘who arrives,’ the text makes clear that it applies to aliens in the nation’s interior as well as at the border.”

Judge Erickson’s dissent was the more searching piece of statutory analysis. Beginning with the present participle “seeking,” and reading it alongside the INA’s definition of “admission” as “the lawful entry of the alien into the United States after inspection and authorization by an immigration officer,” INA § 101(a)(13)(A), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(A), Judge Erickson concluded that § 1225(b)(2)(A) applies only to aliens presently trying to obtain lawful entry. He famously wrote: “For the past 29 years, [Mr. Herrera] Avila would have been entitled to a bond hearing during his removal proceedings. The court now holds that Avila — and millions of others — are subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A). In doing so, the court does not rely on recent Congressional action or a change in the regulations governing detention but rather engages in a novel interpretation of ‘alien seeking admission’ that eluded the courts and five previous presidential administrations.”9

C. Second Circuit — Barbosa Da Cunha v. Lyons (Apr. 28, 2026)

In Barbosa Da Cunha v. Lyons, No. 25-3141 (2d Cir. Apr. 28, 2026), the Second Circuit became the first circuit to reject the Government’s reinterpretation — and it did so unanimously. The petitioner, Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa Da Cunha, was a Brazilian national who entered without inspection in 2004 or 2005 and had lived continuously in the United States for more than two decades. He had filed an asylum application in 2016, received an employment authorization document, and was apprehended by ICE in 2025 while driving to work. A federal district court in New York granted his habeas petition; the Government appealed.

Writing for the panel, Judge Bianco openly acknowledged that the Second Circuit was breaking from its sister circuits, but emphasized that the panel was siding with what he described as more than 370 federal district court judges nationally who had rejected the Government’s position. The court rejected each component of the Government’s textual, structural, and Jennings-based arguments. Judge Bianco wrote that adopting the Government’s reading “would result in [the Second Circuit] endorsing what would be the broadest mass-detention-without-bond mandate in our Nation’s history for millions of noncitizens” — a result, he reasoned, that “is not what the law says.”10

Importantly, the Second Circuit conducted its statutory analysis without deference to the BIA’s decision in Yajure Hurtado, consistent with the Supreme Court’s holding in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 385–86 (2024) (eliminating Chevron deference and requiring federal courts to exercise independent judgment in interpreting statutes). The court reasoned that Loper Bright forecloses the Government’s argument that the Executive’s newly-minted interpretation should be afforded any weight, particularly where the agency’s own contemporaneous regulations and three decades of consistent practice cut decisively the other way. Cf. Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 593 U.S. 155, 169 (2021) (counseling against post hoc administrative reinterpretations of plain statutory text).

A Side-by-Side Comparison of the Competing Analyses

Although all three opinions purport to apply ordinary tools of statutory construction, they reach diametrically opposed conclusions because they emphasize different interpretive premises. Five fault lines warrant practitioner attention.

A. “Applicant for Admission” vs. “Seeking Admission”

This is the textual hinge of the entire dispute. The Fifth and Eighth Circuits collapse the two phrases together, treating “applicant for admission” and “seeking admission” as functionally synonymous. The Second Circuit, by contrast, treats Congress’s use of two distinct phrases as meaningful, applying the canon against surplusage. See, e.g., Carr v. United States, 560 U.S. 438, 448 (2010); Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137, 146 (1995). Under the Second Circuit’s reading, a noncitizen must be both an “applicant for admission” (a definitional status) and presently “seeking admission” (an active conduct requirement) for § 1225(b)(2)(A) to apply. Under the Fifth and Eighth Circuits’ reading, the latter phrase adds nothing.

B. The Structural Role of § 1226(c) and the Laken Riley Act

Section 236(c)’s mandatory-detention list of criminal offenses, 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c)(1), is the structural fulcrum. The Government’s reading renders § 1226(c) largely superfluous as applied to EWI noncitizens — because if every EWI is already subject to mandatory detention under § 1225(b)(2)(A), there is no need to specify which criminal offenses trigger mandatory detention under § 1226(c). The Second Circuit and the dissents in the Fifth and Eighth Circuits emphasize this structural anomaly. The Buenrostro-Mendez and Herrera Avila majorities respond that the Laken Riley Act “had effect” when enacted because the Executive was then declining to apply § 1225(b)(2)(A) broadly. That response rests on an implicit premise — that the Executive had been misreading the statute for thirty years — which the Second Circuit found unpersuasive.

C. Treatment of Jennings v. Rodriguez

All three circuits accept that Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U.S. 281 (2018), holds that detention under § 1225(b) is mandatory and that statutory bond hearings cannot be implied through constitutional avoidance. They differ on whether Jennings answers the antecedent question of which noncitizens fall under § 1225(b) in the first place. The Fifth and Eighth Circuits read Jennings as broadly endorsing the Government’s position; the Second Circuit views Jennings as silent on the threshold scope question, since the petitioners in Jennings were arriving aliens whose status as “applicants for admission” was uncontested.

D. Loper Bright and Agency Deference

All three opinions purport to apply Loper Bright, 603 U.S. 369 (2024), but with markedly different sensibilities. The Fifth and Eighth Circuits invoke Loper Bright only nominally, ultimately echoing the BIA’s Yajure Hurtado reasoning closely. The Second Circuit, by contrast, applies Loper Bright with rigor, holding that the BIA cannot insulate its statutory interpretation from independent judicial review and that the agency’s thirty years of contrary practice undermines the credibility of its current reading. As one court has aptly observed, “[a]n administrative agency like the BIA cannot use Loper Bright to insulate itself from a court’s independent review of the statute.”11

E. Historical Practice and the “Five Administrations” Argument

Perhaps the most rhetorically powerful divide concerns weight given to thirty years of consistent contrary practice. Judge Erickson’s Herrera Avila dissent and Judge Bianco’s Barbosa Da Cunha majority both emphasize that five presidential administrations — including the first Trump administration — read § 1225(b)(2) to apply only to noncitizens encountered at or near a port of entry. The Fifth and Eighth Circuit majorities dismiss this practice as the Executive’s declining to exercise “its full enforcement authority,” not a binding indicator of statutory meaning. Cf. NLRB v. Canning, 573 U.S. 513, 525 (2014) (“[L]ong settled and established practice is a consideration of great weight in a proper interpretation of constitutional [or statutory] provisions.”).

Constitutional Due-Process Avenues Remain Open

Critically, none of the three circuit opinions — including those favoring the Government — forecloses constitutional due process challenges to mandatory detention. Each opinion is purely statutory. As the American Immigration Council has emphasized, “noncitizens in immigration custody may still bring claims that mandatory detention, as applied to them, violates their constitutional right to due process.”12

The classic substantive and procedural due-process framework remains Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976), under which a court weighs the private interest, the risk of erroneous deprivation, and the Government’s interest. Two related lines of authority are particularly important. First, Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 690–91 (2001), holds that civil immigration detention raises serious due-process concerns when prolonged. Second, Demore v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510, 532–33 (2003) (Kennedy, J., concurring), recognizes that even mandatory detention can become unconstitutional if unduly prolonged. Following the Fifth Circuit’s decision, several Texas district judges granted bond hearings on due-process grounds, finding that long-term residents “acquire a liberty interest in being free from government detention without due process.”13

Practitioners in the Eighth Circuit and now (potentially, on petition for rehearing en banc) in the Second Circuit should consider preserving as-applied due-process challenges in habeas petitions filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 even where the statutory question has been foreclosed. A typical due-process petition will plead facts establishing (a) length of residence; (b) community ties (family, employment, property); (c) non-frivolous applications for relief from removal pending before EOIR or USCIS; and (d) the absence of any individualized danger or flight-risk determination.

Practical Implications and Strategic Considerations

The three-way circuit split has immediate, jurisdiction-specific consequences for detained noncitizens and their counsel.

Second Circuit jurisdictions — Connecticut, New York, and Vermont — are now the most favorable forum for EWI petitioners. Habeas petitioners should cite Barbosa Da Cunha as binding circuit precedent. Practitioners in the New York immigration courts (including those before whom this firm regularly appears) should likewise raise Barbosa Da Cunha in opposition to any reliance on Yajure Hurtado by ICE or the BIA in custody redetermination proceedings.

Fifth Circuit jurisdictions — Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi — remain bound by Buenrostro-Mendez on the statutory question. Counsel should pivot to as-applied due-process challenges. Several decisions, including Cumbe Lema v. Anda-Ybarra (W.D. Tex. Feb. 9, 2026) (Cardone, J.) and Hassen v. Noem (W.D. Tex. 2026), illustrate that Buenrostro-Mendez “did not resolve the question of whether continued detention” violates the Constitution, and have continued to grant relief on that basis.14

Eighth Circuit jurisdictions — Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota — are similarly bound by Herrera Avila on the statutory question. Counsel should follow the Fifth Circuit playbook and raise constitutional claims. As one Nebraska judge has observed, the Eighth Circuit’s opinion “only addressed the statutory question, and not due process challenges.”15

All other circuits — the First, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits — currently have no controlling appellate precedent. Active appeals are pending in many of these circuits, including Guerrero Orellana v. Moniz, No. 25-2152 (1st Cir.); Lopez Garcia v. Guadian, No. 25-7044 (4th Cir.); Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft, No. 25-1965 (6th Cir.); Castañon-Nava v. DHS, No. 25-3050 (7th Cir.); Rodriguez Vazquez v. Hermosillo, No. 25-6842 (9th Cir.); Santillan Quiroz v. Noem, No. 26-2019 (10th Cir.); and Hernandez Alvarez v. Warden, No. 25-14065 (11th Cir.).16 Notably, in December 2025 a motions panel of the Seventh Circuit preliminarily concluded that DHS was not “likely” to succeed on its expansive reading of § 1225(b)(2)(A). See Castañon-Nava v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 161 F.4th 1048, 1062 (7th Cir. 2025).

Looking Ahead: A Likely Date With the Supreme Court

The Government has now lost in the Second Circuit and prevailed in the Fifth and Eighth. With several additional circuit decisions expected over the next twelve months and an explicit acknowledgment by Judge Bianco that Barbosa Da Cunha is “parting ways” with the other circuits, the conditions for Supreme Court review are exceptionally ripe. Counsel should expect the Government to seek certiorari, possibly bypassing rehearing en banc in the Second Circuit, given the political and operational stakes.

Two open questions are likely to dominate the Supreme Court briefing if review is granted. First, whether the phrase “alien seeking admission” in § 1225(b)(2)(A) is coextensive with the definition of “applicant for admission” in § 1225(a)(1) — a pure question of statutory construction. Second, whether thirty years of contrary Executive Branch practice is entitled to interpretive weight under Loper Bright and the post-Chevron landscape, particularly when the agency’s reinterpretation departs from contemporaneous regulations promulgated soon after IIRIRA’s enactment. See 62 Fed. Reg. 10312, 10323 (Mar. 6, 1997).

Until the Supreme Court resolves the question, immigration practitioners must navigate a patchwork in which the bond eligibility of long-term EWI residents depends entirely on geography. That is itself a profound rule-of-law concern, and one that Barbosa Da Cunha has now placed squarely on the Supreme Court’s doorstep.

Conclusion

The Second Circuit’s decision in Barbosa Da Cunha v. Lyons is a significant rebuke of the Government’s effort to treat the immigration statute as a blank canvas for new interpretive theories. By rejecting Yajure Hurtado and aligning with the overwhelming weight of district-court authority, the panel restored an analytic discipline that had largely been missing from the Fifth and Eighth Circuits’ reasoning. Whether the Supreme Court ultimately agrees, the decision will, in the meantime, restore the prospect of a bond hearing to thousands of detained long-term residents in the Northeast — and provide a roadmap for advocates litigating in other circuits where the question remains open.

This firm has handled and continues to handle a high volume of detention and bond matters in the New York Immigration Courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the Second Circuit. We will publish further updates as the issue develops. Detained individuals or their family members who believe they are being held without a bond hearing in violation of Barbosa Da Cunha should contact qualified immigration counsel without delay.

  1. Nate Raymond, US Appeals Court Rejects Trump’s Immigration Detention Policy, Reuters (Apr. 28, 2026). The phrase quoted in text appears in the slip opinion of Barbosa Da Cunha v. Lyons, No. 25-3141 (2d Cir. Apr. 28, 2026).
  2. Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, No. 25-20496 (5th Cir. Feb. 6, 2026), slip op.; Herrera Avila v. Bondi, No. 25-3248 (8th Cir. Mar. 25, 2026); see also Patrick L. Gregory, Eighth Circuit Backs Mandatory Detention Policy for Noncitizens, Bloomberg Law (Mar. 25, 2026).
  3. Alexander J. Segal, Eighth Circuit Decision in Herrera Avila v. Bondi, The Insightful Immigration Blog — myattorneyusa.com (Mar. 2026). For prior analysis of the BIA decisions underpinning the Government’s policy, see also Alexander J. Segal, Matter of Yajure Hurtado: BIA Strips Immigration Judges of Bond Authority Over EWIs, myattorneyusa.com (Sept. 2025).
  4. Inspection and Expedited Removal of Aliens; Detention and Removal of Aliens; Conduct of Removal Proceedings; Asylum Procedures, 62 Fed. Reg. 10312, 10323 (Mar. 6, 1997); see also Am. Immigration Council, Detention Under INA § 235(b): The Statutory Scheme and Strategies for Release (Sept. 2025).
  5. Matter of Q. Li, 29 I&N Dec. 66 (BIA 2025); Matter of Yajure Hurtado, 29 I&N Dec. 216 (BIA 2025); see also Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), Three BIA Decisions Severely Limit Bond Eligibility (Sept. 2025); American Immigration Council, BIA Decision Strips Immigration Judges of Bond Authority (Sept. 12, 2025).
  6. Kyle Cheney, More Than 100 Judges Have Ruled Against the Trump Admin’s Mandatory Detention Policy, POLITICO (Oct. 31, 2025); American Immigration Council, Trump’s Radical Mandatory Immigration Detention Policy Upheld by US Appeals Court (Feb. 10, 2026).
  7. National Immigration Law Center, Rapid Response Update on Bond Eligibility for Undocumented Immigrants (Apr. 2026). Maldonado Bautista v. Noem was litigated by the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP) on behalf of a nationwide class.
  8. Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, No. 25-20496, slip op. at 6–8 (5th Cir. Feb. 6, 2026) (Jones, J.); Sergei Tokmakov, Fifth Circuit Upholds Mass Detention: 300+ Judges Said No, Two Said Yes, Terms.Law (Feb. 6, 2026).
  9. Herrera Avila v. Bondi, No. 25-3248, slip op. at 12 (8th Cir. Mar. 25, 2026) (Erickson, J., dissenting); Ashley Renee, The Eighth Circuit Just Made It Two, Substack (Mar. 2026); Brett Samuels, Federal Appeals Court Upholds Donald Trump’s Mass Detention Policy, The Hill (Mar. 25, 2026).
  10. Bianco, J., op. at 1–2, Barbosa Da Cunha v. Lyons, No. 25-3141 (2d Cir. Apr. 28, 2026); see also Stephen Dinan, Appeals Court Rules Against ICE’s Expansive Detention Policy, Washington Times (Apr. 28, 2026).
  11. Cyrus D. Mehta & Kaitlyn Box, Although the Fifth Circuit Has Justified Detention Without Bond … Courts Outside the Fifth Circuit Are Not Bound and Can Use Independent Judgment Under Loper Bright, The Insightful Immigration Blog (Feb. 16, 2026).
  12. American Immigration Council, Trump’s Radical Mandatory Immigration Detention Policy Upheld by US Appeals Court (Feb. 10, 2026); see also Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Understanding Mandatory Detention (Dec. 2025).
  13. Molly Ashford, After Appeals Court Ruling, Pathway for Wrongful Immigration Detention Lawsuits in Nebraska Narrows, Nebraska Public Media (Apr. 2, 2026).
  14. Andrew R. Arthur, District Court Judges ‘Bypass’ Fifth Circuit Mandatory Detention Order, Center for Immigration Studies (Feb. 20, 2026).
  15. Ashford, supra note 13 (quoting Matt Friedman, ACLU of Nebraska).
  16. American Immigration Council, Amicus Briefs Argue Overbroad Application of Mandatory Detention Under INA 235(b)(2) Results in Cruel, Arbitrary, and Unnecessary Detention (Jan. 29, 2026), (collecting docket numbers of pending circuit appeals).