The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled March 25 to uphold a move by President Donald Trump’s administration that allows the government to detain workers without papers indefinitely. The ruling deals a blow to the constitutional due process protections of thousands of immigrants caught up in the government’s stepped-up raids and deportations.
Last July the administration had announced a new policy that denies immigrants facing deportation proceedings the right to win release by posting a bond. Previously, workers without papers were able to win release by convincing a judge they would turn up for future hearings and were not a threat to others.
The new policy makes it much harder for those facing deportation orders to fight their expulsions. The share of detained immigrants who were released on bond or under parole or supervision dropped from 26% in October 2024 to 3% by September 2025. At the same time the number being detained has soared.
The federal court ruling came in the case of Joaquin Herrera Avila, who has lived in the U.S. for nearly 20 years. Department of Homeland Security officers arrested him in Minneapolis after a traffic stop last August and began deportation proceedings against him. He challenged his detention and won release, but the government appealed and the federal court ruling reversed his discharge.
Bipartisan attack on immigrants
The Trump administration’s measures build on anti-immigrant policies adopted under Democratic President Bill Clinton. He signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in 1996, giving greater power to the immigration agency to deport immigrants without appeal or judicial review. It restricted eligibility for bond hearings only to those immigrants who lived in the U.S. for more than two years.
In Herrera Avila’s case, Judge Ralph Erickson issued a strong dissent, citing an earlier U.S. Supreme Court court ruling that said the Constitution’s “Due Process Clause applies to all ‘persons’ within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary or permanent.”
The Constitution’s 14th Amendment says no state can “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law.” Any person, regardless of immigration status.
The question being fought over here is an important part of the class struggle today. In several cases where Immigration and Customs Enforcement cops have seized undocumented workers, their families, friends, neighbors, unions and co-workers are fighting for their release and raising funds for their legal costs. Millions of workers across the U.S. are outraged at the increasing moves by the government to detain fellow workers who they’ve worked, lived and fought alongside of, and are determined to push back the government’s assaults.