Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a quick donation.

A divided federal appellate panel ruled Friday in favor of the Trump administration’s policy of locking up most undocumented immigrants without bond, a decision that legal experts called a serious blow to due process.

A three-judge panel of the right-wing 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled 2-1 that President Donald Trump’s reversal of three decades of practice by previous administrations is legally sound under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). The ruling reverses two lower court orders.

“The text [of the IIRIRA] says what it says, regardless of the decisions of prior administrations,” Judge Edith Jones — an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan — wrote for the majority. “That prior administrations decided to use less than their full enforcement authority… does not mean they lacked the authority to do more.”

Writing in dissent, Judge Dana M. Douglas, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, asserted that........

© Truthout