Immigrants in the US illegally fight the Trump administration's new no-bail policy [View all]

Source: NPR

July 28, 2025 11:06 PM ET


A class action lawsuit has been filed challenging the Trump administration's new policy requiring immigrants illegally in the U.S. who are arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to remain in detention while fighting their deportation. It's an abrupt reversal of long-standing practice of allowing individuals who are deemed not a flight risk or a public safety threat to be released on bail while their cases move through the immigration court system.

The new policy was outlined in an email to all ICE employees on July 8. The agency said it was using its "extraordinarily broad" authority to change its interpretation of existing law. As a result, even individuals who have been living and working in the U.S. for decades – with deep community ties – fall under the same law as those just recently caught entering illegally, and must remain locked up.

ICE officials say the policy aims to keep America safe by closing "loopholes" that allowed "millions of unvetted illegal aliens" to be released into communities, according to Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. But advocates for migrants are asking a federal court in California to block it.

"It's a misinterpretation of the law," says Matt Adams, legal director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, one of several groups bringing the class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration. "The statute makes clear that they are entitled to a bond hearing [but] now the agencies are attempting to rewrite the law … and they're adopting this draconian interpretation."

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/28/g-s1-79972/immigrants-in-the-us-illegally-fight-the-trump-administrations-new-no-bail-policy