The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit declined Thursday to revisit a February panel ruling that upheld President Donald Trump's policy of holding illegal immigrants in mandatory detention during deportation proceedings, a decision that keeps the administration's record at the appellate level unblemished and pushes the legal fight closer to the Supreme Court.
The move means the 5th Circuit's earlier 2-1 ruling stands. That February decision found that the president has clear authority under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to detain illegal immigrants without offering them bond hearings, even though prior administrations chose not to exercise that power. The full court's refusal to grant en banc review sends a straightforward signal: a majority of the circuit's active judges saw no reason to second-guess the panel.
Trump now holds two appellate wins and zero losses on the mandatory detention question. A three-judge panel on the 8th Circuit reached the same conclusion in March, ruling that the detention policy is lawful. Together, the two circuits form a growing wall of appellate authority behind the administration's enforcement posture, even as the Washington Examiner reported that the administration has suffered hundreds of losses on the same issue in lower federal district courts.
The February panel ruling turned on statutory text. Judge Edith H. Jones, writing for the majority, held that the 1996 immigration law means what it says, regardless of how earlier presidents interpreted it. As AP News reported, Jones wrote:
"Unadmitted aliens apprehended anywhere in the United States are ineligible for release on bond, regardless of how long they have resided inside the United States."
Jones also addressed the argument that decades of contrary practice should override the statute's plain language. Newsmax noted she wrote bluntly: "The text says what it says, regardless of the decisions of prior administrations."
That reasoning matters. Critics of the policy had argued that because previous administrations allowed bond hearings for illegal immigrants caught inside the country, the current administration could not suddenly reverse course. The 5th Circuit rejected that logic outright. The statute grants the power. Whether a president uses it is a policy choice, not a legal limitation.
The ruling overturned lower-court outcomes in Texas and contradicted a separate California district court decision that had favored bond hearings for detained immigrants without criminal histories.
The 8th Circuit's March ruling reinforced the same legal framework. That panel also ruled 2-1 in favor of the administration. Judge Bobby Shepherd, writing for the majority, zeroed in on the statutory distinction between immigrants who have been formally admitted and those who have not.
As the Washington Times reported, Shepherd wrote: "In distinguishing an alien 'who has not been admitted' from one 'who arrives,' the text makes clear that it applies to aliens in the nation's interior as well as at the border."
The case involved Joaquin Herrera Avila, a Mexican national arrested in Minneapolis in August 2025. The majority held that immigration law clearly treated him as an "applicant for admission" subject to detention without bond, as Breitbart reported.
A senior administration official told the Washington Times that the 8th Circuit decision "reinforces the importance of challenging and appealing activist judicial rulings in order to ensure the law is being followed as written." Attorney General Pam Bondi was less measured, calling it a "MASSIVE COURT VICTORY against activist judges and for President Trump's law and order agenda."
The full 8th Circuit has not yet decided whether to take up en banc review of its panel's ruling. If it declines, as the 5th Circuit just did, the administration's appellate winning streak stays intact.
The appellate victories stand in sharp contrast to what has happened in the district courts. The administration has absorbed hundreds of adverse rulings from lower federal judges on the same mandatory detention question. That pattern, familiar from earlier Trump-era legal battles, reflects the reality that individual district judges can block policy nationwide, even when the statutory text favors the government.
The volume of litigation has real costs. Andrew Arthur, the Center for Immigration's resident fellow in law and policy, previously told the Washington Examiner that the sheer number of cases is grinding down both the courts and the Department of Justice.
"This is one of those things the Supreme Court needs to resolve sooner rather than later, because this is sapping the vital energy out of the district courts and out of DOJ because there are just so many of these cases."
Arthur also pointed to the practical burden on government lawyers and judges, even when the briefs are routine. "You can have boilerplate briefs all you want," he said. "Judges still have to rule on them. Attorneys still have to show up in court to argue."
That observation captures a dynamic conservatives have flagged for years: a single district judge can impose a nationwide injunction, forcing the executive branch to litigate the same question over and over in courtrooms across the country, burning through DOJ resources while the policy hangs in limbo. The appellate wins help, but only Supreme Court resolution will end the cycle.
The lawyers for the illegal immigrant who challenged the detention policy in the 5th Circuit now have one option left: the Supreme Court. Arthur has said he believes the high court will take up the case in the near future.
The timing could matter. The Supreme Court's current term runs through the end of June, and the justices already have immigration on the docket. The court will hear arguments on April 29 over the president's bids to end temporary protected status for Haiti and Syria. A decision in those consolidated TPS cases is expected by the end of June.
Federal law specifically precludes judicial review of the administration's decision to end TPS for different countries, yet nearly every effort by the administration to do so has been met with a lawsuit. That pattern mirrors the mandatory detention fight: the statute says one thing, opponents litigate anyway, and district courts often oblige.
If the Supreme Court does not take up the mandatory detention question before the current term ends, the next term begins in October. Either way, the issue is heading to the justices. Two circuits have now endorsed the administration's reading of the law. No circuit has ruled the other way. The question is when, not whether.
The broader immigration enforcement landscape remains contested. Lower courts continue to push back on various Trump administration policies, from TPS terminations to expedited removal authority. But the appellate trend line is moving in the administration's direction.
The Department of Homeland Security has argued that detained illegal immigrants can be deported more quickly and are easier to track than those released pending hearings, a straightforward enforcement rationale that the two appellate courts found consistent with the statute.
For the administration, the math is simple: mandatory detention removes the incentive to disappear into the interior while a case drags on for months or years. For opponents, the policy represents a dramatic expansion of executive power. The courts, so far, have sided with the text of the law over the habits of prior administrations.
Meanwhile, Trump has continued pressing Congress to fund the enforcement apparatus needed to carry out the detention policy at scale, setting a June 1 deadline for reconciliation legislation that would boost ICE and Border Patrol resources.
Thursday's order from the full 5th Circuit was procedural, a refusal to rehear, but its implications are substantive. It cements the appellate foundation the administration needs and accelerates the path to the Supreme Court. It also exposes the gap between what the statute plainly authorizes and what a generation of executive inaction allowed to become the assumed norm.
The law was passed in 1996. It has said the same thing for three decades. The only thing that changed is that an administration finally decided to enforce it.
When the government reads a statute the way it was written and the courts agree, that is not an expansion of power. It is a correction, long overdue, of a failure to use it.
