Under a new Trump administration policy, millions of migrants who entered the U.S. illegally will remain in detention throughout their deportation proceedings, which can stretch for months or even years.
In a July 8 memo, Acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons instructed agents that migrants will no longer qualify for bond hearings and must be held “for the duration of their removal proceedings.”
Lyons explained that DHS and the Justice Department “revisited their legal position on detention and release authorities” and concluded that migrants “may not be released from ICE custody.”
First disclosed by The Washington Post, the policy overturns decades-old migrant detention norms and is set to intensify the Trump administration’s deportation campaign. Tom Jawetz, a former Biden homeland security official, described it as “a radical departure that could explode the detention population.”
Previously, migrants facing deportation could request a bond hearing before a judge—and if granted, they were released into the community while their cases proceeded.
According to last year’s ICE annual report, most of the 7.6 million migrants on the agency’s docket were released. Under the new policy, however, these individuals must remain in detention, where ICE currently holds about 56,000 people daily.
That population is set to nearly double under the recently enacted Big Beautiful Bill, which provides $45 billion over four years to expand detention capacity for civil removal proceedings.
The new policy encompasses any migrant who crossed the southern border without authorization—regardless of when— including those who arrived in record numbers under the Biden administration. In exceptional cases, officers, not judges, may still grant parole, per the memo.
The administration defends the change by pointing to an immigration-law provision stating that migrants “shall be detained” following arrest, interpreting this as a blanket prohibition on release. Historically, that clause was understood to apply only to recent crossers. Lyons’s memo even acknowledges the policy is “likely to be litigated.”
Meanwhile, Lyons urged ICE attorneys “to make alternative arguments in support of continued detention,” as immigration advocates report that bond hearings are already being denied in over a dozen immigration courts nationwide.
Now, some of these detainees face deportation to so-called “third countries” on as little as six hours’ notice—sometimes even after they’ve had a chance to consult with counsel.
“This is their way of putting in place nationwide a method of detaining even more people,” said Greg Chen, the senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “It’s requiring the detention of far more people without any real review of their individual circumstances.”
Immigrant advocacy organizations contend that the updated directive strips migrants of due process, with one immigration attorney—and former ICE chief counsel in the Dallas region—noting that detainees “could be held indefinitely until they’re deported.”