A panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit sharply questioned the Trump administration on Monday over its mandatory detention policy for undocumented immigrants, as the problem races toward the Supreme Court amid nationwide divisions in the judiciary.
The three-judge panel made up of U.S. Circuit Judges Lara Montecalvo, an appointee of former President Joe Biden; Sandra Lynch, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton; and Joshua Dunlap, an appointee of President Donald Trump, pressed Department of Justice lawyers over the administration’s stance that immigration law permits them to keep immigrants lacking permanent legal status detained pending removal proceedings. One of the major questions the judges asked dealt with whether an immigrant lacking permanent legal status already in the interior of the country is still legally “seeking admission,” a key term in the underlying law.
“I thought the statute defined admission as lawful entry, and if it does, how do you seek lawful entry when you’re already inside the country?” one of the judges asked DOJ lawyer John Bailey.
Bailey responded that even if someone enters the country unlawfully, they are still considered to be seeking admission under the law. The judge pushed back by questioning how that person can seek lawful entry from within the country.
The DOJ faced a grilling throughout the hearing Monday morning, although the judges did not signal how they would rule in the case. The case is an appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, where a federal judge ruled against the administration’s mandatory detention policies, alongside dozens of other federal district courts nationwide that have done the same.
At federal appeals courts, two have sided with the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy, the 5th and 8th Circuits, while the 2nd Circuit became the first appeals court to rule against Trump on the matter last week.
The split between the circuits currently stems from whether an immigrant lacking permanent legal status in the interior of the country is considered to be seeking admission and can therefore be quickly removed, or if they should be considered as already admitted because they are not at the border or a port of entry, and would therefore not be subject to mandatory detention.
“The argument that most district court judges have bought has been that there is some distinction between an applicant for admission and an alien seeking admission. That Congress intended that distinction because it wanted to make clear that detention only applies to aliens who are at the border or the ports,” Andrew Arthur, the Center for Immigration’s resident fellow in law and policy, told the Washington Examiner.
“That’s plainly not correct, because if you read through the rest of that line [in the law], it says an alien seeking admission is not clearly and beyond the doubt entitled to be admitted,” Arthur said. “That’s really just the standard for deciding whether somebody should be denied admission, not whether somebody should be detained or not detained.”
Another issue that has come up in the legal battles over mandatory detention is the 2025 Laken Riley Act, which mandates the detention of illegal immigrants who are charged with certain crimes, including shoplifting, theft, and crimes resulting in a death or serious injury. During Monday’s arguments in the 1st Circuit, one of the judges questioned how that law plays a role in the DOJ’s argument, questioning whether the Laken Riley Act undermines the DOJ’s claim that detention of all immigrants lacking permanent legal status is mandatory.
Arthur told the Washington Examiner the law was passed against the backdrop of an administration, under Biden, which was not keeping most immigrants lacking permanent legal status in detention, and that the law was intended to be redundant to ensure those undocumented immigrants were detained pending removal proceedings.
“At the time that Congress passed Laken Riley, it was DHS policy to give bonds to aliens who were applicants for admission who had entered illegally,” Arthur said. “There isn’t any problem with redundancy, because Congress is expected to know how the administration is administering the law.”
SUPREME COURT APPEARS POISED TO ALLOW TRUMP TO END TPS FOR HAITI AND SYRIA
As appeals courts continue to issue rulings on Trump’s mandatory detention policy, it will become a prime target for the Supreme Court to take up in its next term. The high court had its final scheduled oral arguments of the current term last Wednesday, with the next scheduled oral arguments set for Oct. 5 — opening the Supreme Court’s next term.
The case out of the 5th Circuit is the most advanced of the various legal battles, after the full bench of the appeals court declined to review a three-judge panel’s ruling, handing Trump a win on the issue. The case could be appealed to the Supreme Court, where the justices could elevate it for its next term.