The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled the federal government can’t hold undocumented immigrants for more than 90 days without a bond hearing, rejecting a Trump administration policy that requires immigration agents to hold immigrants until they are deported.
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In 2-1 ruling, the three-judge panel based in New Orleans said the federal government must explain at court hearings why it believes some undocumented immigrants don’t deserve to be released on bond.
“Our only requirement is that a hearing must be held within 90 days of the commencement of detention and that at the hearing, the Government must articulate an individualized justification for further detention without bond,” Leslie H. Southwick, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in the majority opinion.
He added the government must prove the detained immigrant is a danger to the community and flight risk or “assert another justification why an unadmitted alien must be detained.”
The panel said it recognizes that under federal immigration law, undocumented immigrants who recently arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border can be held until their deportation. But it ruled that undocumented immigrants who have made lives in the U.S. before their arrest are protected by due process laws.
James E. Graves Jr., an Obama appointee agreed, but added in his opinion that 90 days is still too long. “There is much that could be said about the troubling conditions noncitizens are currently experiencing, in what amounts to an appalling lack of humanity shown to our fellow human beings,” Graves wrote.
Cory Wilson, a Trump appointee, dissented, saying in his opinion that he would not grant the release of undocumented immigrants because they are “not entitled to challenge their detention under” current immigration law.
The case stems from the arrest of three men in Texas by state troopers between November 2025 and February 2026 during routine traffic stops. All three have lived in the country for at least 14 years, worked during that time and have American citizen children. The troopers turned the men over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who held them in detention without allowing them to see a judge.
Ignacio Sosnava Rodriguez, Miguel Angel Gomez Alvarado and Alejandro Villegas Angel were eventually released from ICE custody after federal judges found that holding them without a chance for a bond hearing violated the men’s due process rights. The Trump administration appealed, arguing that federal immigration law says undocumented immigrants should be held until deportation without bond hearings — a policy it put in place in July 2025.
The detentions under that policy have led to a historic number of lawsuits. According to ProPublica, immigrants filed more habeas corpus petitions — nearly 47,000 — in the first 13 months of the second Trump administration than in the past three administrations combined. Roughly one in five were filed in Texas federal courts.
Politico found that more than 400 federal judges — appointed by presidents of both major political parties — have ruled in favor of immigrants’ right to due process in more than 5,000 cases since the policy change last year. In comparison, 41 judges have sided with the Trump administration’s interpretation of the law in 250 cases, according to a Politico analysis of federal government data.
The Trump administration appealed some of the cases to higher courts, leading to competing rulings. Before Thursday, three other federal appeals courts had ruled against the administration, two have upheld its policy and one remains deadlocked.
Immigration lawyers say they expect the issue to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
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