A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration's legal strategy for detaining longtime undocumented residents without bond hearings is "a complete fantasy."
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, 2-1, the release of three men who had been locked up without any hearing to contest their detention.
The three — Ignacio Sosnava Rodriguez, Alejandro Villegas Angel and Miguel Angel Gomez Alvarado — had lived in the United States for 22, 15 and 14 years, respectively, according to the Texas Tribune.
They are fathers of U.S. citizen children with no criminal records, each stopped in a routine Texas traffic stop before being transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
For 29 years, the government allowed people in their situation to seek bond hearings. In 2025, the Department of Homeland Security reversed that policy, treating them as subject to mandatory detention with no bond and no hearing.
Immigrants have filed 57,657 habeas corpus petitions — legal challenges to their detention — since January 2025, more than in the past three administrations combined, ProPublica found as of publication. The government has called it a "tsunami."
"The answer to those difficulties cannot include ignoring the Constitution," Circuit Judge Leslie Southwick wrote in the ruling.
The administration's core argument rested on a Supreme Court case involving a man caught just 25 yards inside the border — and people who crossed decades ago and built lives here.
"It is a complete fantasy," Southwick wrote, rejecting that equivalence.
The court also found the government had selectively quoted that same Supreme Court case, omitting language that "changes the meaning of the selected" passage.
Circuit Judge James Graves concurred but called for even faster hearings — within 30 days, not 90. He wrote of "an appalling lack of humanity shown to our fellow human beings," noting the men had "started families, raised children, and contributed to their communities."
Circuit Judge Cory Wilson dissented, warning the ruling "deputizes every district court" to remake immigration law and would invite "even more chaos" into already overwhelmed dockets.
The ruling gives the government 90 days to justify each detention or release the detainee.
The Supreme Court has already agreed to hear a related detention case, Genalo v. Black, which could unsettle Thursday's decision.