US Appeals Court Pauses Nationwide Rulings Against Trump Detention Policy

A federal appeals court has put on hold a California judge’s nationwide rulings barring the Trump administration from detaining people arrested in its immigration crackdown without allowing them a chance to seek release on bond.

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals largely paused those rulings while the administration pursues an appeal, saying the judge likely went too far by granting class action status on a nationwide basis to non-citizens facing mandatory detention.

The appeals court said the ruling declaring the detention policy unlawful would remain in effect only in the Central District of California, where the judge is based.

The decision marks the Trump administration’s latest appellate success after the 5th and 8th Circuits endorsed its detention policy. Other appeals courts are reviewing the issue, which the US Department of Justice expects to eventually reach the Supreme Court.

Matt Adams, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said in a statement that the 9th Circuit’s ruling “means that district courts across the country will continue to be flooded with habeas petitions, as that is now the only mechanism for class members to secure a bond hearing.”

The litigation follows the US Department of Homeland Security last year taking the position that non-citizens already residing in the US qualify as “applicants for admission” subject to mandatory detention if accused of being in the US illegally.

DHS’s stance differs from previous administrations, which had long interpreted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996’s mandatory detention provision as applying only to border arrivals.

The policy shift has triggered thousands of habeas lawsuits by migrants claiming wrongful detention without access to bond hearings before immigration judges. Hundreds of judges in individual cases have declared the policy unlawful, but US District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, California, is the only one to do so on a nationwide basis.

 

Sykes, appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, certified a nationwide class and in December declared the DHS policy unlawful. She went further in February by vacating a Board of Immigration Appeals decision that endorsed the administration’s position.

She acted after the chief immigration judge in January advised colleagues that they were not bound by Sykes’ December ruling and should continue following the board’s decision. The BIA and immigration judges are part of the US Department of Justice, not the judiciary.

In Tuesday’s ruling, the 9th Circuit panel said the administration had made a “strong showing” that Sykes wrongly certified a nationwide class, noting that claims concerning the validity of someone’s detention “must be brought in habeas proceedings in the appropriate district of confinement.”

The appeals court added that Sykes likely lacked jurisdiction to vacate the BIA’s decision, as the administration had already lodged an appeal of her December ruling, which prevented her from expanding it.

The panel included US Circuit Judges M. Margaret McKeown, Daniel Bress and Carlos Bea. Bea and Bress were appointed by Republican presidents, while McKeown was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

 

The court ruled just a day after hearing arguments in the case, having previously issued a temporary administrative pause of Sykes’ ruling while considering its next steps.

 

The case is Bautista v. US Department of Homeland Security, 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 26-1044.

 

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