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On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted what is sure to be the blockbuster case of its 2026–27 term. In Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, the justices will consider the Trump administration’s novel interpretation of federal immigration law that has given it legal cover to systematically detain any immigrant who entered the U.S. without permission, regardless of criminal history and without assessing whether they are a public safety threat or pose a flight risk. Hundreds of lower court judges, Democrat and Republican appointed ones, have been rejecting the Trump administration’s application of the law for the past year, and yet it’s enabled immigration agents to continue to hold tens of thousands of people in detention centers all over the country, a practice that has enabled some of the Trump administration’s most inhumane immigration policies.

The justices will consider head-on whether the Trump administration’s interpretation of two sections within the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 236 and 235(b), is lawful. The law gives federal authorities two options when faced with a deportation case: keep the noncitizen in federal custody while their immigration case goes through the courts or release them on bond or parole. In recent history, all U.S. presidents choose to only apply the detention standard to recent border crossers, and any immigrants who have been living in the U.S. with established families and careers were eligible for bond or parole, so long as they were........

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