The Trump administration has made a drastic move in revising U.S. immigration enforcement, as a new directive by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has withdrawn access to bond hearings for illegal immigrants, effectively excluding them from being released from detention.
Under this policy, the people who came to the U.S. illegally will now stay in jail for the length of their removal proceedings—a timeframe that can last months, even years. The policy, implemented immediately, covers millions, including immigrants who came under President Biden.
Memo Confirms Indefinite Detention
On July 8, acting ICE director Todd M. Lyons issued a memo to the officers to hold illegal immigrants through their legal proceedings, a far cry from the earlier policy that let detainees seek bond hearings. Lyons said that the Department of Homeland Security has now reconsidered its legal interpretation and made a finding that such immigrants “may not be released from ICE custody.”
Massive Implications for Immigrant Communities
This change impacts millions of undocumented people, it forecloses on the chance of bond and opens the door to an expansion of immigration detention facilities. Therefore, numerous immigrants now have extended detention without access to law, experts have cautioned that the policy risks flooding detention facilities, which are already crowded and in poor condition.
Such facilities as the infamous “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida and far-flung Arizona centers are even more dangerous. Detainees will get limited legal assistance, no means to work, and little visitation from family.
Goal: Detain and Deport at Scale
Today, ICE holds approximately 56,000 immigrants daily, Trump administrators have instructed immigration officers to work overtime to achieve the president’s goal of 1 million deportations in his first year. Under this strategy, family detention centers shut down by the Biden administration are now reopened, notwithstanding previous child safety concerns.
Supporters Endorse Hardline Approach
Conservative immigration leaders support the policy shift, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told the Washington Post, “Detention is absolutely the best way to approach this. You’re pretty much guaranteed to be able to remove the person if he’s in detention.”
Since the release of the memo, the American Immigration Lawyers Association has said bond hearings have been suspended in over a dozen courts, including New York, Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina, Ohio, and Georgia. Those courts are under the Department of Justice’s jurisdiction, representing a sweeping, coordinated application of the directive.
The Trump administration’s immigration strategy now emphasizes detention at the expense of due process, seriously undermining civil liberties and the future of immigration justice in America.
