(CALIFORNIA) — U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, California, vacated a Board of Immigration Appeals decision on February 19, 2026, that had endorsed the Trump administration’s policy of mandatory detention for migrants without bond hearings.
The ruling blocks immigration authorities from using that board decision to deny detainees the chance to ask an immigration judge for release on bond, narrowing an immigration detention policy that had allowed people to be held while their cases proceed.
Sykes wrote that the administration’s actions were “shameless” and accused it of trying to continue its “campaign of illegal action” by refusing bond hearings despite her prior order. “Respondents have far crossed the boundaries of constitutional conduct,” she wrote.
The case centers on bond hearings, a procedural safeguard that lets people held in immigration custody ask an immigration judge to set bond and consider release while removal proceedings move forward.
Sykes’s order also removes reliance on the Board of Immigration Appeals decision that immigration judges had been instructed to follow, even after she previously found the underlying approach unlawful.
At the heart of the dispute is a Trump administration reinterpretation of federal immigration law that treated certain non-citizens arrested inside the United States as “applicants for admission,” a label traditionally used for people arriving at ports of entry.
That label matters because it affects which detention statutes apply and whether a person can seek release through a bond hearing, or instead faces mandatory detention while immigration proceedings continue.
By applying the “applicants for admission” classification in the interior, the policy expanded detention authority beyond traditional border-arrival scenarios and widened the reach of mandatory detention beyond typical border contexts.
The administration’s shift reversed three decades of government practice under which individuals who had entered without inspection but were already residing in the country retained the right to bond hearings.
Sykes had already declared the underlying detention policy unlawful in a December 2025 ruling, but she did not initially vacate the Board of Immigration Appeals decision.
The judge took further action after Chief Immigration Judge Teresa Riley issued guidance instructing immigration judges that they were not bound by Sykes’ ruling and should continue following the board’s decision.
By vacating the board’s September 2025 decision, Sykes’s February 19 ruling means immigration judges nationwide can no longer use that decision as a basis to deny bond hearings in covered cases.
Sykes framed the dispute in constitutional and due-process terms, concluding immigration agencies applied detention rules without individualized review and exceeded legal limits by using a blanket approach.
The decision does not, on its own, establish a step-by-step bond process, but it changes what legal authority immigration judges can rely on when deciding whether detained migrants may seek release on bond.
The practical effect is immediate for detainees whose cases fall under the framework Sykes addressed, because the vacated board decision can no longer be invoked to shut down bond-hearing requests.
A widening split among federal courts has raised the stakes for nationwide detention rules and created uncertainty for uniform application of detention authority across jurisdictions.
While Sykes and hundreds of other federal district judges have rejected the mandatory detention policy, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled on February 6, 2026, in a 2-1 decision that the Trump administration can indefinitely detain certain undocumented immigrants without bond hearings.
That February 6 ruling marked the first federal appellate court decision to uphold the administration’s reinterpretation, creating conflicting precedent across different jurisdictions.
A Trump-appointed judge dissented in the Fifth Circuit decision, arguing the government’s interpretation was inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent distinguishing between people seeking admission and those already in the country.
The split matters because it can speed up higher-court review, as conflicting rulings on detention without bond hearings make it harder for the government and immigration courts to apply a single nationwide rule.
Even as the bond-hearing fight continues, other court orders have targeted separate parts of immigration detention and enforcement practices, adding pressure on the system and increasing scrutiny of how arrests and detention operate on the ground.
On December 24, 2025, Judge Casey Pitts issued a ruling staying ICE and Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) courthouse arrest policies in ICE’s San Francisco Area of Responsibility, finding they likely violate the Administrative Procedure Act.
Those policies had forced immigrants to choose between attending mandatory hearings and risking arrest or skipping court and facing automatic deportation.
In a separate detention-conditions case, on February 11, 2026, the U.S. District Court of Northern California granted a preliminary injunction requiring ICE to improve conditions at the California City Detention Facility, California’s largest immigration detention center.
That order requires ICE to provide access to emergency healthcare services, specialists, prescribed medications, attorney access, appropriate clothing, and blankets.
Another federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on February 18, 2026, requiring DHS and ICE to restore meaningful access to lawyers for people detained in Minnesota, requiring confidential attorney-client visits and private phone calls with counsel.
A different detention issue reached federal court in late 2025, when a federal district court in California blocked the Trump administration’s policy of re-arresting and re-detaining immigrants the government had previously released after concluding they were neither dangerous nor a flight risk in Garro Pinchi v. Noem.
Taken together, those rulings reflect widening litigation over arrest practices, detention conditions, attorney access, and re-detention, with courts scrutinizing the detention system beyond the bond-hearing dispute.
For visa holders, students, and workers watching the case, Sykes’s ruling focuses on detention procedure rather than changing visa eligibility rules.
The decision brings no direct, immediate change to F-1 student visas, H-1B work visas, employment-based green cards, or tourist or business visas based on this detention ruling alone.
Instead, the primary impact falls on individuals in removal proceedings, asylum seekers, and migrants held in immigration detention facilities, especially those affected by the “applicants for admission” reclassification and mandatory detention position.
Still, the broader enforcement climate can indirectly influence inspections, compliance reviews, and adjudication scrutiny, even if common categories and forms remain unchanged by this particular court order.
Niels Frenzen, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law who represented the plaintiffs in Sykes’s case, tied the ruling to day-to-day detention outcomes. “We hope that DHS and the immigration courts will now comply with the court’s orders to provide bond hearings to the thousands of noncitizens who have been arrested,” he stated.
DHS and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sykes’s ruling.
The ruling does not permanently end the detention policy, and the government may appeal, a move that could bring new requests for stays or other orders affecting how quickly the change is felt in immigration courts.
Covered detainees may press for bond hearings under Sykes’s framework now that the Board of Immigration Appeals decision has been vacated, and immigration judges can no longer treat that decision as binding authority to deny hearings.
With the Fifth Circuit upholding detention without bond in its February 6, 2026, 2-1 ruling and other courts reaching the opposite conclusion, the circuit split strengthens the possibility of Supreme Court review.
As courts continue to shape detention authority and due-process limits, Sykes’s decision reinforces that judicial review is actively defining how immigration enforcement and detention practices operate, even as near-term uncertainty remains while appellate courts weigh in.
Court Blocks Trump Immigration Detention Policy Denying Bond Hearings for Applicants for Admission
Judge Sunshine Sykes has struck down a Board of Immigration Appeals policy that allowed for the mandatory detention of migrants without bond. By vacating the September 2025 decision, the ruling ensures that immigration judges can no longer rely on that framework to deny bond requests. This decision highlights a growing judicial divide, following a conflicting ruling from the Fifth Circuit that supported the administration’s detention authority.
