Overview
- The Eighth Circuit panel, which ruled 2-1 on Wednesday, upheld DHS’s view that people who entered the U.S. without inspection can be held without bond during deportation cases.
- The decision binds seven states including Minnesota, where officials say more than 1,000 detention challenges from the recent Operation Metro Surge could be affected.
- The case stemmed from Joaquin Herrera Avila’s Minneapolis arrest, after which a district judge ordered a bond hearing that the appeals court reversed over a dissent noting a break with decades of practice.
- The Fifth Circuit reached the same result in February, while other courts have disagreed, creating a circuit split that lawyers on both sides say points to Supreme Court review.
- In a separate case, DOJ disclosed Tuesday that it wrongly relied on an ICE memo to defend arrests at immigration courts, triggering rebriefing as DHS says it will keep making those arrests in courts run by DOJ, not ICE.