As President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort continues, his administration has taken a new approach: detaining more undocumented immigrants without a chance for a bond hearing.
This comes after the Board of Immigration Appeals – a panel governing immigration courts under the Department of Justice – issued a ruling in a case on Sept. 5 that stripped immigration judges from the authority to hold bond hearings or grant release to anyone who entered the U.S. without inspection at any time.
“Anyone in the U.S who has never come in on a visa or had permission to come in, no matter how long they’ve been here, is technically going to be mandatorily detained with no possibility of doing a bond hearing or asking for relief,” said Tammy Lin, adjunct professor and supervising attorney at the University of San Diego School of Law. “It’s an interpretation that most of the federal courts have rejected.”
It marks a major change, denying many from even requesting a hearing with a judge to determine if they may be eligible for release on bond as their cases proceed.
In San Diego, 21-year-old Deisy Mendoza said a judge granted her parents’ release, but the Department of Homeland Security appealed, and they remain at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, nearly three months after they were taken into custody.
Mendoza said on June 25, her parents were walking to their car in their apartment building’s parking garage, where ICE agents were waiting. Both parents are undocumented but have no criminal history and have been in the U.S. for more than 20 years, she said.
“They came for my dad but my mom was there too, so they took both,” Mendoza said.
The oldest of five U.S. citizens, Mendoza has since stepped in as breadwinner and caretaker of her younger siblings.
“It’s been really difficult just trying to go day by day and try to keep the routine, you know, especially starting school,” Mendoza said. “It’s been a little more hectic taking the kids to school, picking them up, and then still having to work. I try to cook for them every day.
“I’m now in my mom’s shoes, so, I mean, to carry all that is just stressful and just scary, thinking that, like, if I miss a day of cooking, it’s like, you know, my siblings are without eating,” Mendoza continued through tears. “I want to go to my mom, and she’s not there, but I’m trying to stay strong for them both and my family.”
“On June 25, ICE officers arrested Lucas Mendoza-Castro and Yesenia Morales Calixto, illegal aliens from Mexico,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement on the case. “After being granted a Voluntary Return to Mexico, Morales re-entered the U.S. illegally, a felony, at an unknown date and time.
“We are appealing the judge’s ruling based on lack of jurisdiction to redetermine bond,” the statement continued. “We are no longer allowing illegal aliens who have never been admitted into the U.S. to be eligible for bond. President Trump and Secretary Noem are now enforcing this law as it was actually written to keep America safe. If illegal aliens don’t want to end up in detention, they should use the CBP Home app to receive $1,000 and a free flight home.”
Experts say the policy change will undoubtedly result in more, lengthier detentions at centers that have been at capacity for months.
“It’s going to be more overcrowding at the detention facilities,” Lin said, later adding. “It’s going to be more money being paid to these private corporations that own these detention facilities. When we say detention, it’s a kind way of saying: It’s a prison.”
Lin said she had two clients with pending green-card applications, whose cases were dismissed in immigration court but were detained from April to August at a cost to the taxpayer of $152 apiece per day, per ICE’s own estimate.
“If you calculate that $152 for about 150 days, that’s almost like $23,000 that is paid by taxpayers to house them, where it used to be that they would likely be released,” Lin said.
They were released once their cases were dismissed again, Lin said.
In these instances, often the only recourse is to file a habeas corpus petition in district court, Lin said.
“I think it’s to exhaust,” she continued. “I think it’s to exhaust practitioners, attorneys, to exhaust the folks that are detained and to really just force people to leave.”
Mendoza said her parents had discussed the possibility of returning to Mexico, which she said she “can’t even imagine.”
“We need them, not only for the income, the source, but emotionally,” Mendoza said. “It’s something I don’t wish upon anyone, honestly.”
Lin said a class-action lawsuit has been filed against the mandatory detention policy, with a hearing scheduled for October.
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