Immigrants can be denied bond

Court upholds Trump policy, potentially expanding mandatory detention to millions.

- BY RACHEL URANGA

FEDERAL agents in New York immigration court, where migrants are detained.

A Trump administration policy to deny bond hearings to immigrants who entered the country without authorization was upheld by an immigration appellate board Friday, expanding mandatory detention to thousands of people already behind bars and potentially millions more nationwide.

Although the policy is being challenged in federal court, the ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals is likely to send an immediate chill through immigration courts where judges for decades have released individuals on bond whom they did not deem a flight risk or danger.

Those judges are now bound by the board's decision. Immigration courts are not part of the judicial branch but fall under the Department of Justice.

Immigrant rights attorneys say holding immigrants throughout their cases — a process that can take years — is intended to break the spirit of many and force them to sign their own deportation orders.

"This is an effort to increase the number of people in detention significantly," said Niels W. Frenzen, director of the USC Gould School of Law Immigration Clinic, who is part of a team of attorneys who have filed habeas petitions for dozens of immigrants picked up during the raids in recent months in Los Angeles.iterally millions of people are now subject to being held without bond," he said.