Pirate's Cove

They can all avoid this by self-deporting

ICE declares millions of undocumented immigrants ineligible for bond hearings

The Trump administration has declared that immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally are no longer eligible for a bond hearing as they fight deportation proceedings in court, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

In a July 8 memo, Todd M. Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told officers that such immigrants should be detained “for the duration of their removal proceedings,” which can take months or years. Lawyers say the policy will apply to millions of immigrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border over the past few decades, including under Biden.

In the past, immigrants residing in the U.S. interior generally have been allowed to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge. But Lyons wrote that the Trump administration’s departments of Homeland Security and Justice had “revisited its legal position on detention and release authorities” and determined that such immigrants “may not be released from ICE custody.” In rare exceptions immigrants may be released on parole, but that decision will be up to an immigration officer, not a judge, he wrote.

The provision is based on a section of immigration law that says unauthorized immigrants “shall be detained” after their arrest, but that has historically applied to those who recently crossed the border and not longtime residents.

Doesn’t matter: they are here illegally. The law states they can be held. We’ve seen what happens when they are let go on bond/own recognizance: they disappear for years/decades.

Since the memos were issued last week, the American Immigration Lawyers Association said members had reported that immigrants were being denied bond hearings in more than a dozen immigration courts across the United States, including in New York, Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia. The Department of Justice oversees the immigration courts.

All they have to say is “I want to leave the U.S.” and they will escorted out of a detention facility and put on a plane or across the border. It’s that easy. And it is a whole lot easier to run deportation hearings when all illegal alien is right there. This also entices illegals to just leave and avoid the whole thing.

In its 2024 annual report, however, ICE said it detains immigrants only “when necessary” and that the vast majority of the 7.6 million people then on its docket were released pending immigration proceedings. Keeping them detained while their case is adjudicated has not been logistically possible, and advocates have raised concern for migrants’ health and welfare in civil immigration detention.

That was 2024. As we were told, elections have consequences.