Eighth Circuit says some immigrants arrested in U.S. can be detained without bond hearings
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A federal appeals court has ruled that some immigrants arrested inside the United States may be detained without a chance to ask a judge for release.
In a decision Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit sided with the Trump Administration and overturned a Minnesota judge’s ruling that had given one man that opportunity.
The case centers on Joaquin Herrera Avila, a Mexican citizen who was arrested while driving along Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis in August 2025. Authorities say he was arrested for “lacking legal documents authorizing his admission into the United States.”
After his arrest, immigration officials detained him and started deportation proceedings. Court documents note that Herrera Avila illegally entered the United States in 2006 and again a decade later.
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In response to a petition for habeas corpus, U.S. District Judge John Tunheim ruled in October that Herrera Avila is eligible for a bond hearing — meaning a chance to argue that he should be released while his case moves forward in immigration court. Authorities released Herrera Avila on a $7,500 bond.
But in a 2-1 opinion issued Wednesday, the appellate panel said that Tunheim made the wrong call.
Under the Eighth Circuit’s interpretation of the law, a person who entered the United States illegally and arrested anywhere in the country — not just at the border — can be detained without a bond hearing.
“The border is everywhere, in the sense that the limited rights that people have at the border are the same limited rights in the [interior of] the United States as well,” said Graham Ojala-Barbour, a St. Paul immigration attorney who is not involved with Herrera Avila’s case.
One judge on the panel strongly disagreed. In a dissent, Judge Ralph Erickson writes that his colleagues’ interpretation breaks with decades of practice, where people such as Herrera Avila were typically allowed to ask for release on bond.
“For the past 29 years, Herrera Avila would have been entitled to a bond hearing,” Erickson wrote.
Quoting from a dissent in a similar Fifth Circuit opinion by Judge Dana Douglas, Erickson adds that “[G]overnment intrusions have always been tolerated at the border that would be intolerable in the interior, for the obvious reason that citizens and noncitizens alike expect to be able to go about their business without having to show that they are ‘clearly and beyond doubt entitled to be admitted’ if taken, or mistaken, for an otherwise inadmissible noncitizen.”
The case now goes back to Tunheim, but the decision could have broader effects. It may make it easier for immigration authorities to detain people without bond hearings in Minnesota and the six other states covered by the Eighth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit decision allows undocumented immigrants arrested in Texas, Louisiana and Missisissppi to be similarly detained.
Julia Decker, policy director at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, said the ruling could have immediate consequences.
"It will likely further increase detention numbers both in Minnesota and nationwide, given that the Eighth Circuit encompasses multiple states,” Decker said.
Decker said that the ruling could increase fatalities among detainees. She noted that deaths in ICE detention rose sharply in 2025 and continued at an alarming pace this year.
On social media, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called the decision a “MASSIVE COURT VICTORY against activist judges and for President Trump’s law and order agenda!”
Tunheim, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, has served as a federal judge since 1995. Appellate Judges Stras and Erickson are appointees of President Donald Trump. President George W. Bush appointed Judge Shepherd to the Eighth Circuit bench. President Joe Biden appointed Judge Douglas.
