Overview
- U.S. District Judge Sunshine S. Sykes in California certified a nationwide Bond Eligible Class, concluding Section 1226 applies to interior arrests and allowing many detained immigrants to seek bond hearings.
- Sykes expanded her order this week after finding last week that the administration’s July change eliminating such hearings was unlawful, and lawyers report immigration judges are already notifying detainees of this right.
- The nationwide relief does not extend to people with disqualifying criminal convictions or those in expedited removal, who remain ineligible for bond hearings.
- In Colorado, Senior U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson issued a preliminary injunction restricting warrantless interior arrests to cases with documented, individualized flight-risk findings, ordered ICE to reimburse bonds for four plaintiffs, and required I‑213 narratives to spell out the basis for any such arrests.
- DHS criticized the decisions and has signaled appeals, while the California case proceeds toward a joint report and conference set for January 2026.