Congress Must Reverse A Decision That Opens The Door To Mass Detention

CONGRESS MUST LEGISLATIVELY OVERRIDE A COURT RULING THAT AUTHORIZES INDEFINITE DETENTION WITHOUT A JUDGE As your constituent, I urge Congress to legislatively override a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that authorizes indefinite immigration detention without judicial review. By reinterpreting the Immigration and Nationality Act, this ruling allows detention without a judge. The decision permits the Executive Branch to place long-time interior residents into mandatory, no-bond immigration detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225 (INA § 235), a statute Congress designed for brief border inspection. In doing so, it strips individuals of the bond protections Congress provided under 8 U.S.C. § 1226 (INA § 236). THE RULING ALLOWS PEOPLE ALREADY LIVING HERE TO BE TREATED AS IF THEY JUST ARRIVED AT THE BORDER Under this ruling, people arrested inside the United States may be treated as applicants for admission standing at a port of entry. By reclassifying long-time residents as “applicants for admission,” the government moves them out of the bond-eligible detention system Congress created and into mandatory, no-bond detention. PEOPLE WHO HAVE LIVED PEACEFULLY IN THE U.S. CAN BE JAILED INDEFINITELY WITHOUT EVER SEEING A JUDGE Put plainly, a person who has lived in the United States for a decade, worked steadily, paid taxes, and raised U.S.-citizen children can now be arrested during routine interior enforcement and jailed for months or years with no bond hearing and no judicial review. THIS RULING IS AN EXTREME DEPARTURE FROM BASIC AMERICAN JUSTICE It is deeply troubling and incompatible with American justice for the government to claim the power to imprison people indefinitely without a hearing based solely on legal re-labeling. In our system, loss of liberty requires individualized review by a neutral judge, not administrative wordplay. THIS DECISION ENABLES A MASSIVE DETENTION EXPANSION WITHOUT A SINGLE VOTE IN CONGRESS Congress has never authorized mandatory, no-bond detention for broad categories of long-time residents. If applied nationwide, this interpretation could subject tens of thousands of people at any given time to mandatory detention without bond. Federal courts are already seeing a surge of habeas corpus petitions under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. COURTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY HAVE REJECTED THIS THEORY, INCLUDING JUDGES FROM BOTH PARTIES Before this decision, hundreds of federal judges rejected this reading of the law. The reclassification theory was adopted as binding precedent by the Board of Immigration Appeals in Matter of Yajure Hurtado (BIA 2025) and then upheld by a divided 2–1 Fifth Circuit panel. The dissent warned that the majority was rewriting the Immigration and Nationality Act. FAILURE TO ACT WILL NORMALIZE A SYSTEM INCOMPATIBLE WITH AMERICAN VALUES If Congress does not intervene, this ruling will allow administrations to jail people without bond or hearings. That result undermines due process and erodes public confidence in American justice. CONGRESS MUST TAKE THE FOLLOWING STEPS (1) Enact legislation clarifying that 8 U.S.C. § 1225 does not apply to long-time interior residents and that such individuals remain subject to the bond-eligible framework in 8 U.S.C. § 1226. (2) Hold immediate oversight hearings on DHS’s reclassification policy, the BIA’s adoption of that theory, and the resulting human, fiscal, and constitutional costs. (3) Publicly affirm that mandatory detention without judicial review requires explicit congressional authorization. Thank you.