WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Thursday it will consider whether immigrants subject to deportation can be held in detention indefinitely while their cases are tried.
The final decision could approve or end a key part of President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration crackdown.
The case is one of three cases being considered by the court before the judges return to action on Monday for a new nine-month term after the summer break. Decisions in these three cases are expected to be released by the end of June.
In the first case, the focus is on whether these immigrants should have the opportunity to argue at a bond hearing that they can be released while the deportation process moves forward, which was a common practice under previous presidents.
The justices will hear an appeal from the Trump administration in the case of Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, a Brazilian who arrived in the United States in the mid-2000s.
He was arrested following a traffic stop in Norwood, Massachusetts, in September 2025. He filed a lawsuit, and a federal district judge ordered his release. The New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld that decision on appeal.
Lower courts are divided on the issue, although the majority sided with immigrants who argued that the federal law invoked by the Trump administration to detain them without a bond hearing only applied to people detained near the border.
Since last summer, the Trump administration has sought to apply this federal law to anyone considered to have entered the United States illegally, even if they are far from the border and have lived in the country for years.
Several cases on the issue are pending before the Supreme Court.
“As beautiful as it is, the government cannot twist the law to detain immigrants for months or even years without a bond hearing. Not only is this cruel and inhumane, it is illegal,” Michael Tan, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing various detainees, said in a statement.
In court papers, Solicitor General D. John Sauer, representing the Trump administration, called the issue “a critically important matter of immigration law.” The policy removes a “perverse incentive” whereby people who escape detention when entering the United States are treated more leniently than those detained at the border, he added.
The litigation, Sauer said, “disrupts the orderly administration of immigration law.”
Thousands of people have already been detained under the policy, which could apply to millions of immigrants if expanded, and many have challenged it. The case does not concern immigrants who have been convicted of certain crimes. Under federal law, they can be held until deportation, although separate lawsuits have raised questions about whether they should also be eligible for bond hearings.
ACLU lawyers said in court papers that the Trump administration’s policy is a “radical reinterpretation” of immigration law, noting that some of those detained were young children when they crossed the border.
Those challenging their confinement do not pose a flight risk or potential danger to the public, ACLU lawyers say.
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