NEW YORK.- The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, based in New York, rejected the policy of President Donald Trump’s government to detain immigrants it seeks to deport and determined that authorities must allow these people to request bail.
“Even if the government’s new interpretation of Section 1225(b)(2)(A) were believable—and it is not—we would still reject it based on our obligation to interpret these statutes in a way that avoids serious constitutional questions, which entails what would be the broadest mass detention without bail mandate in the history of our nation for millions of noncitizens,” determines the opinion approved unanimously, that is, 3-0.
Judge Joseph Bianco, a Trump appointee, wrote the opinion that was supported by two other judges, one appointed by Bill Clinton and another by Joe Biden.
Although it is an important decision for the Second District’s jurisdiction, this creates a split in the circuit court with the rulings of the Fifth and Eighth Circuits, so this could be taken to the Supreme Court.
In the opinion, Judge Bianco indicates that the Trump administration failed to justify its idea of detaining immigrants for an indeterminate period of time while processing them for deportation.
“It is even more difficult to explain why the government, if it had the responsibility to detain the enormous number of noncitizens contemplated in Section 1225, would have neglected for almost thirty years to increase its detention capacity enough to actually implement that mandate,” says the decision in reference to the current government’s immigration idea.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has implemented an idea to expand detention centers, but its intention to detain immigrants indefinitely has been challenged in court.
How does this case reach the courts?
The petitioner in the case is Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, originally from Brazil, who entered the US without inspection or admission around 2005 and has lived in the United States since then.
However, in 2016 he requested asylum and, as part of the process, was granted a valid work permit, but with the Trump administration’s new policies, Barbosa da Cunha was detained by ICE in September 2025.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), almost from the beginning of the Trump administration, implemented a detention rule for people with pending asylum cases, to process them for deportation.
“The government arrested him [a Bargosa da Cunha] with an administrative order, subjected him to deportation proceedings and stated that, while his deportation proceedings are pending, he must remain detained,” a court document states.
However, the immigrant’s defense filed a request for habeas corpuschallenging his arrest.