This article is part of Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

Donald Trump’s ability to jail millions of people without even a bond hearing depends on what the Supreme Court thinks about one man’s case. 

His name is Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, he’s a Brazilian citizen, and he crossed the United States’ southern border without inspection over 20 years ago. Since then, he’s lived a model American life, becoming the owner-operator of a small construction business, a married father of two U.S. citizen children, and an asylum seeker with a work authorization and no criminal record. 

Last September, he was arrested by immigration agents while driving to work in Norwood, Massachusetts. 

For decades, if someone like Barbosa da Cunha wound up in ICE custody, he would have been afforded a bond hearing and been evaluated by an immigration judge on whether he was likely to attend future court dates, and whether his release would pose a risk to his community. 

That changed in July 2025, when the Trump administration dramatically reinterpreted the law governing immigrant detention. ICE issued a memo saying that anyone who entered the country without inspection would be considered to be “seeking admission” to the U.S., and thus required to be jailed without bond for the duration of their immigration proceedings, even if they’d lived here without incident for years. 

The administration’s brand-new interpretation of a 30-year-old law lumped people like Barbosa da Cunha in with recent arrivals at the border — and with suspected terrorists and people charged or convicted of certain crimes, who also face mandatory detention. 

It also threw the federal court system into chaos. Without the option for a bond hearing in immigration court, people detained in ICE jails under the new policy have instead gone to federal civil court, filing habeas corpus petitions challenging their detentions by the tens of thousands; this year, those cases have so far amounted to a quarter of all civil suits filed in federal court, Reuters recently reported. 

And judges have overwhelmingly ruled against the administration. Out of at least 24,100 federal court rulings concerning immigration detention, judges across the........

© Talking Points Memo