The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled 10–7 on Friday, October 23, that immigrants held under the federal mandatory-detention law have no constitutional right to a bond hearing while their deportation cases are pending. Sitting en banc, the court held that people who entered the country without being lawfully admitted are entitled only to the procedures Congress provided in 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A).
Source: Rothman Report
Writing for the majority, Judge Cory T. Wilson said dangerousness and flight risk are immaterial for this category of detainees, and that the length of their detention presented no constitutional issue warranting habeas relief on the records before the court. "The Constitution does not entitle them to a bond hearing," he wrote. The court ordered its mandate to issue forthwith, sending the cases back to the district courts immediately.
Source: Workers Rights News, reporting the opinion and Texas Tribune case reporting
The decision in Sosnava Rodriguez v. Vergara reverses three district-court orders that had freed longtime Texas residents: Ignacio Sosnava Rodriguez, who has lived in the United States for more than 22 years and was detained after a traffic stop in December 2025, Miguel Angel Gomez Alvarado, and Alejandro Villegas Angel, who has lived in the U.S. since 2011. Each had lived in the country for at least 14 years and has U.S. citizen children, according to case reporting. The ruling also vacates a July three-judge panel decision that would have required bond hearings within 90 days.
Seven judges dissented, with Judges Leslie Southwick, Stephen Higginson and Dana Douglas each writing dissents warning about prolonged detention without an individual hearing. Ellie Norton of the National Immigration Project, which represents the men, said the ruling "opens the door to more people being locked up for no reason." ICE publicly welcomed the decision, posting that detainees covered by the ruling can be held without bond throughout removal proceedings.
Source: Particle News summary of the en banc decision
The ruling is binding precedent only in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, and it does not require ICE to detain every person it arrests — it applies to the category of never-admitted detainees covered by § 1225(b)(2)(A). Other appeals courts have ruled differently on the administration's mandatory-detention policy, deepening a circuit split, and the Supreme Court has separately agreed to consider a related statutory question about mandatory detention, according to legal reporting on the case.
Source: Times Now World
Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi hold large immigrant communities, including Punjabi and Indian workers and truckers. After this ruling, a person in those states who entered without admission and is picked up by ICE — even after a routine traffic stop, and even after decades in the U.S. — can be held until the deportation case ends, with no judge weighing danger or flight risk in a bond hearing.