Court Fight Over Endless ICE Detention

June 28, 2026

U.S. Customs and Border Protection documents on a table

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to greenlight a policy that could lock up millions of immigrants — including people who have lived here for decades — with no chance to argue for their release.

Quick Take

The Department of Justice filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to approve a no-bond detention policy for immigrants who entered the country illegally, no matter how long ago.
The policy is a new reading of a federal immigration law — one that previous administrations did not apply this broadly.
Hundreds of federal judges have already struck down the policy, but the administration keeps fighting for it in court.
The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a related case, setting the stage for a ruling that could reshape immigration enforcement for years.

What the Trump Administration Is Asking For

The Department of Justice filed a petition in a case called Raycraft v. Lopez-Campos, docketed on June 24. The administration wants the Supreme Court to rule that anyone who entered the U.S. illegally must be held in detention — with no bond hearing — while their deportation case plays out. The legal argument rests on Section 1225 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which says people “seeking admission” shall be detained if an officer decides they are not clearly entitled to enter.

The key shift is how the administration defines “seeking admission.” Under a policy adopted last year, the government now applies that label to people who entered without permission — even if they crossed the border years or decades ago and have since built lives here. That is a major change from how prior administrations read the law. Before, mandatory detention was mainly used for people caught at the border or recently arrived.

Courts Have Pushed Back — Hard

Federal judges across the country have not been receptive. Hundreds of judges have ruled against the no-bond policy since it was rolled out. In 2024, a federal appeals court in New York found that the Constitution’s due process protections require a bond hearing for anyone held for an extended period. The Trump administration called that ruling “seriously misguided” and appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Board of Immigration Appeals — the top immigration court in the country — issued a ruling in September 2025 that backed the administration’s position. It found that detention is mandatory for anyone in deportation proceedings who entered the U.S. “without inspection.” That ruling upended decades of prior practice and stripped immigration judges of the power to grant bond in most of these cases.

The Supreme Court Is Already Involved

The Supreme Court agreed in June 2026 to review whether the government can hold noncitizens for months or years without a bond hearing. One case before the court involves two green card holders convicted of serious felonies. One was held for seven months and the other for nearly two years — neither got a hearing to determine if they were a flight risk or a danger to the community.

DOJ Asks Supreme Court To Approve No-Bond Immigration Detention Policy https://t.co/qbheQdNQkg #Money #Finance #Economics #Market

— Alen Karabegovic (@AlenKarabegovic) June 28, 2026

This is not the first time the high court has weighed in. In 2018, a 5-3 ruling in Jennings v. Rodriguez found that immigration law does not require bond hearings, but the court sent the constitutional question back to lower courts without resolving it. In 2022, the court again upheld the government’s ability to detain immigrants without bond hearings under the statute, while leaving the door open to constitutional challenges. The current cases may finally force the court to answer the constitutional question directly.

What’s at Stake for Millions of People

The scale of this policy is hard to overstate. About 60% of people currently in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody are already subject to mandatory detention, meaning they have no right to a bond hearing. The U.S. spends more than $3 billion a year on immigration detention — the largest such system in the world. Expanding mandatory detention to cover nearly all undocumented immigrants, including long-term residents, could add millions more to that system.

Whether you believe strict detention is necessary to enforce immigration law or that indefinite detention without a hearing is a basic violation of rights, the Supreme Court’s eventual ruling will draw a line that affects real people on both sides of that debate. The question of whether the government can lock someone up indefinitely — without ever letting a judge weigh in — is one that goes to the heart of what due process means in America.