U.S. Immigration ‌and Customs Enforcement cannot detain people for more than 90 days under ​the Trump administration’s mass detention policy without providing them a chance to ⁠be released on bond, a divided U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday (July 2, 2026).

The ruling by a 2-1 panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could affect thousands of individuals who ‌have been detained in States within its jurisdiction, including Texas and Louisiana as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

A different panel of the ‌same court had been the first in the nation to endorse the Trump ‌administration’s ⁠novel interpretation of a federal immigration statute as allowing mandatory detention of non-citizens ⁠living in the United States.

But the February ruling did not address whether the due process protections of the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment require those same migrants being given a chance to seek release by appearing before ​an immigration judge for a ‌bond hearing.

U.S. Circuit Judge Leslie Southwick, writing for the majority in Thursday’s opinion, said the U.S. Supreme Court made clear in 2001 that the due process clause protects everyone, including the two Mexican citizens and one Honduran whose cases were before the ‌5th Circuit.

“It is part of the historic majesty of this long-ago founding charter ​that it makes no exceptions in providing basic rights to those within our boundaries, including a right to be heard when personal liberty ⁠is taken,” wrote Southwick, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush.

U.S. Circuit Judge Cory Wilson, a Trump appointee, dissented, saying “the majority marginalizes the Constitution’s express grant of plenary authority ‌over immigration matters to Congress.”

Rebecca Cassler, a lawyer for the migrants at the American Immigration Council, in a statement said they “are delighted that the panel recognized the core constitutional principle that the due process clause does not allow the government to lock them away indefinitely.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not respond to a request for comment.

Under federal immigration law, “applicants for admission” to the United States are subject to ‌mandatory detention while their cases proceed in immigration courts and are ineligible for bond hearings.

Bucking a long-standing ​interpretation of immigration law, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last year took the position that non-citizens already residing in the United States, and not ⁠just people arriving at the border, qualify as “applicants for admission” subject to mandatory detention.

The ⁠Board of Immigration Appeals, which is part of the Justice Department, issued a decision in September that adopted that interpretation. As a result, immigration judges, who ‌are employed by the department, across the country began ordering mandatory detention.

The federal appeals courts are divided on whether that interpretation of the law is correct, leading ​the Trump administration last week to ask the Supreme Court to resolve the issue.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said it has identified 10,000 foreign students, including several from India, who claim to be working for highly suspect employers by misusing the Optional Practical Training (OPT) component of their visas.

OPT allows foreign nationals who enter the United States on a student visa to work in the U.S. for 12, or in some cases 24 months. It also allows students to transition to an H-1B visa sponsored by employers.

Addressing a press conference on Tuesday (May 12, 2026), acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons said the OPT component of the student visa programme has “become a magnet for fraud” and has been the subject of many investigations by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“We’ve encountered cases involving espionage, biological threats, intellectual property theft, visa and employment fraud, and even scams targeting elderly Americans, all perpetrated by individuals abusing their status as students,” Mr. Lyons said.

“Our nation will not tolerate security threats originating from the foreign student programme,” Mr. Lyons said.

Mr. Lyons and other officials outlined how federal investigators conducted site visits, identifying, among other things, cases where OPT beneficiaries were being “managed” by employees based in India, in violation of a provision of the programme requiring U.S. training and direction.

Mr. Lyons said the OPT programme, which was unveiled during the George W. Bush administration, had anticipated only a few thousand beneficiaries to receive training before returning home.

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“Instead, OPT ballooned into an uncontrolled guest worker pipeline with hundreds of thousands of foreign students working in the United States. As the programme’s size has exploded, so has the fraud,” he said.

Mr. Lyons dubbed the OPT fraud a blatant attack on the goodwill of the American people, who generously allow foreign nationals access to their education system.

The Department of Homeland Security entered a partial shutdown Saturday (February 14, 2026) as U.S. lawmakers fight over funding the agency overseeing much of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Thousands of government workers, from airport security agents to disaster relief officials, will either be furloughed or forced to work without pay until funding is agreed upon by Congress.

At the center of the budget dispute is the department’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), whose agents killed two U.S. citizens amid sweeping raids and mass protests in Minneapolis.

Democrats oppose any new funding for DHS until major changes are implemented over how ICE conducts its operations.

In particular, they have demanded curtailed patrols, a ban on ICE agents wearing face masks during operations and the requirement that they obtain a judicial warrant to enter private property.

“Donald Trump and Republicans have decided that they have zero interest in getting ICE under control,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Friday (February 13, 2026).

“Dramatic changes are needed,” Mr. Jeffries told a news conference. “Absent that, Republicans have decided to shut down parts of the federal government.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt put the blame on the opposition, telling Fox News that “Democrats are barreling our government towards another shutdown for political and partisan reasons.”

But while DHS faces a shutdown, ICE itself will remain operational, under funds approved in last year’s government spending bill.

Senator John Fetterman pushed against his fellow Democrats, saying: “This shutdown literally has zero impact on ICE.”

The primary impact would land on other agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which oversees emergency response to natural disasters.

The Transportation Security Administration, which runs airport safety, warned on X that a prolonged shutdown could result in longer wait times and cancelled flights.

Negotiations stalled

The shutdown would be the third of Mr. Trump’s second term, including a record 43-day government closure last October and November.

The government just reopened from a smaller, four-day partial shutdown earlier this month, also over DHS funding.

Even if all 53 Republican senators vote to fund DHS, Senate rules require support from 60 of the body’s 100 members to advance the budget bill, meaning several Democrats would need to get on board.

In response to the Democrats’ demands, the White House said it was ready to negotiate over immigration enforcement policy.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune called it “an extremely serious offer,” but warned Democrats are “never going to get their full wish list.”

Some concessions were made during the previous shutdown amid Democratic pressure and national outcry after federal agents shot and killed Renee Good, a mother of three, and Alex Pretti, a nurse who worked with military veterans, in Minneapolis last month.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said federal agents in the city would wear body cameras “effective immediately” in a move that would be later “expanded nationwide.”

The Senate went into recess for a week starting Thursday (February 12, 2026), but senators could be called back to Washington in case of a rapid leap in negotiations.

For the moment, however, talks between the White House and Democrats appear to be at a standstill.