The 5th Circuit Court of appeals rules in favor of 'mandatory detention'!

 

Trump immigration win in Fifth Circuit on mandatory detention

The decision is binding precedent in the Fifth Circuit.

Wendi Strauch Mahoney | February 10, 2026 www.americanthinker.com

An important decision rendered by the Fifth Circuit on Feb. 6, 2026 sided with the Trump administration on the issue of detention without bond for certain noncitizens arrested in the U.S. interior.  Reuters reports that this “marked the first time an appeals court upheld” the Trump administration’s policy of mandatory detention without the opportunity to be released on bond while removal proceedings are pending for noncitizens who entered the country unlawfully and are later arrested in the U.S. interior.

The decision comes after hundreds of lower-court rulings nationwide declared mandatory detention unlawful.  In its opinion, the Fifth Circuit noted that “well over a thousand” habeas petitions have been filed challenging this policy shift, and it cited a New York decision that cataloged 350 district-court rulings granting relief to detainees.

For the majority, with Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan joining, Judge Edith H. Jones wrote that the relevant statute, 8 USC §1225(b)(2)(A), requires mandatory detention of “applicants for admission” who are not “clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted,” and that the petitioners fell within that category even though they were arrested years after entering unlawfully.  The court concluded that being an “applicant for admission” necessarily means the person is also “seeking admission” for purposes of §1225(b)(2)(A), rejecting the argument that “seeking admission” applies only to people actively trying to enter at a port of entry.  The panel reversed both district courts’ orders and sent the cases back for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.

The consolidated appeals involved two Mexican nationals — Victor Buenrostro-Mendez (who entered in 2009) and Jose Padron Covarrubias (who entered in 2001) — who were detained in 2025 after immigration officers determined they were inadmissible because they were present in the United States without having been admitted or paroled.  Both sought bond hearings, and immigration judges found them ineligible under the government’s reading of the statute.  Two federal district judges disagreed and ordered bond hearings, after which both men were released.  The government appealed.

The Fifth Circuit decision aligns with a Sept. 5, 2025 Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) ruling in the Matter of Yajure Hurtado, which concluded that many noncitizens who entered without inspection and have not been admitted are subject to mandatory detention under §1225(b)(2) rather than discretionary detention under § 1226(a).  After DHS began applying that interpretation in 2025, the Fifth Circuit reported that the shift triggered a nationwide wave of habeas challenges.  The majority (in the Fifth Circuit) also said its reading fits Congress’s 1996 immigration overhaul (IIRIRA), which sought to eliminate what courts have called the “entry anomaly” — the idea that unlawful entrants could end up with more favorable treatment than people who tried to enter lawfully.

In Yajure Hurtado, the respondent (a Venezuelan national) crossed into the United States without inspection in November 2022 near El Paso, Texas; received Temporary Protected Status in 2024; and was charged as inadmissible after that status expired in April 2025.  The BIA held that immigration judges lack authority to conduct bond hearings or grant bond to noncitizens who are present in the United States without admission and are detained under §1225(b)(2)(A).

Judge Dana M. Douglas wrote the dissenting opinion, warning that the government’s interpretation “would mean that, for the purposes of immigration detention, the border is now everywhere.”  She added, “That is not the law Congress passed, and if it had, it would have spoken more clearly.”

Judge Jones, on the other hand, emphasized that “Section 1225(b)(2) does not include any exception that permits the government to release detained aliens on bond.”  In a footnote, citing Torres v Barr, she writes,

By covering both unadmitted aliens present in the United States and those who arrive at the country’s borders, Section 1225(a)(1) ensure[d] that all immigrants who have not been lawfully admitted, regardless of their presence in the country, are placed on equal footing in removal proceedings under the INA.

The Fifth Circuit’s published decision is binding precedent in the Fifth Circuit (Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi), but it is not binding in other circuits.  Parties may seek rehearing en banc, and other federal appeals courts may weigh in, which could increase the odds of Supreme Court review — especially if the circuits disagree.