Trump Administration Sued Over Stripping Immigrants' Right to Bond

San Juan, P.R. - Immigrant rights advocates on Monday filed a class-action lawsuit against President Donald Trump's administration, seeking to invalidate a new policy enacted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that ends bond eligibility for immigrants currently detained by the agency.

If the new policy, issued on July 8, continues, tens of thousands of immigrants would be jailed indefinitely while their immigration cases are considered for months or even years, eliminating immigrants' ability to seek release on bond.

The plaintiffs and proposed classes are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Southern California, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP), and attorneys Niels Frenzen and Jean Reisz.

"The Constitution guarantees all people within the borders of the United States the rights to equal protection and due process of law," said Michael Tan, Deputy Director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "The Trump Administration seeks to rewrite constitutional protection, denying millions of immigrants in detention centers the ability to even apply for bond. Through a memorandum, and without adequate justification, ICE is imposing isolation and family separation for months, or even years, while detainees wait for their cases to be heard," he added.

This lawsuit amends an existing habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of petitioners unlawfully detained at the ICE Processing Center in Adelanto, Southern California, who were denied bond consideration by ICE and immigration judges. The district court issued an order yesterday requiring that they be granted a bond hearing within the next seven days.

The plaintiffs now seek to represent the class of individuals nationwide subject to the ICE policy, as well as a class of individuals who were denied bond hearings at the Adelanto Immigration Court.

"This new policy also impacts immigrants in Puerto Rico, where there have already been cases of bond denial to detainees by ICE," emphasized attorney Annette Martínez Orabona, Executive Director of the ACLU of Puerto Rico, where more than 800 immigrants have been detained, according to ICE figures.

"The detention policy blatantly violates immigration laws that have been in place for nearly thirty years," said Matt Adams, Legal Director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, for his part.

Advocates noted that all people present in the United States, regardless of immigration status, have constitutional rights, and the Due Process Clause applies to all "persons," including immigrants without regularized status. Denying bond eligibility to these detainees and depriving them of a hearing violates these rights.

By categorically denying bond without case-by-case consideration, the policy "will result in thousands of additional people being held in for-profit immigration prisons for prolonged periods of time," argued co-counsel Frenzen and Reisz.