New ICE Policy Blocks Detained Migrants From Seeking Bond

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration is attempting to make millions of immigrants living in the country illegally ineligible to be released from detention on bond as they fight their deportation cases, according to a memo viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The policy shift, issued under what is known as interim guidance by acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons last week, will apply to all immigrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, no matter when. Lyons told officers in a memo that such immigrants should remain in detention throughout their deportation proceedings, which can stretch for months or even years, according to the memo. The move marks a significant departure from decades of practice, when immigration judges had the latitude to release someone from detention on a bond if they weren’t deemed a flight risk. Immigration law states that all immigrants in the country illegally must be detained while their fates are decided, but with limited beds available in ICE jails, the government had considered the law effectively impossible to enforce. “The Biden administration dangerously unleashed millions of unvetted illegal aliens into American communities—and they used many loopholes to do so,” Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said. “President Trump and Secretary Noem are now enforcing this law as it was actually written to keep America safe.” The Washington Post on earlier reported on the new policy. Roughly 57,800 people were in ICE detention as of June 29, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, known as TRAC. With a coming infusion of tens of billions of dollars from President Trump’s signature tax and spending package, ICE is hoping to expand its detention capacity to 100,000 beds, up from roughly 40,000 under the Biden administration. Trump administration officials hope to soon begin stepping up deportation efforts, which have lagged behind in the early months of Trump’s second term. ICE agents detaining an immigrant in a courthouse. An immigrant is detained by ICE agents in New York. Photo: Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images Immigration officials asked the general counsel’s office at the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, to reconsider the longstanding policy of allowing immigrants to be released on bond, given that the agency will soon have the capacity to detain them, said an administration official familiar with the matter. A small number of people might still be released from detention, Lyons wrote, but those decisions will now be made by an ICE officer rather than a judge. The legal interpretation ICE is now using has faced previous legal challenges in Washington state, where advocates say immigration court judges in Tacoma for years denied bond to almost all of the immigrants there who have entered the country illegally. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.