A Donald Trump immigration policy has suffered another judicial setback. A federal appeals court rejected the administration’s strategy of detaining certain migrants without giving them the opportunity to seek release on bond and compared the scope of the measure to one of the darkest episodes in U.S. history: the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

In a 2-1 decision, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the government cannot interpret immigration laws in a way that allows for mandatory detention of millions of people living in the country who are facing deportation proceedings. Judge Nicole Berner, who wrote the majority opinion alongside her colleague Barbara Keenan, warned about the consequences of mass detention without due process protections.

“Mass detention of marginalized individuals without due process harkens back to some of the darkest moments in our country’s history,” Berner wrote. The judge also noted that during World War II, the government ordered the mass detention of people of Japanese ancestry in the United States.

Berner said those detentions constituted a “historical stain” and argued that the interpretation of a law currently defended by the government could authorize a policy on an even larger scale based on an ambiguous legal provision approved three decades ago. She also cited the detention of Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century as another precedent for such measures.

The ruling represents the ninth rejection by a federal appeals court of the interpretation adopted by the Trump administration. Only two of the appeals courts that have considered the issue have backed the government’s position, creating a split that greatly increases the chances that the dispute will reach the Supreme Court.

The conflict stems from the different interpretation of a law adopted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since July 2025. For decades, administrations of both parties, including Trump’s first administration, had primarily applied mandatory detention provisions to people detained upon entering the United States or near the border. Those detained inside the country could generally request a hearing to determine whether they could be released on bond, with some exceptions provided by law.

The new interpretation considerably broadened that scope. ICE argued that people who entered the country without inspection could be considered applicants for admission even after having lived in the United States for years and therefore could be subject to mandatory detention without the right to a bond hearing while their immigration proceedings move forward.

The measure has affected even people with immigration applications that have been pending for years because of administrative backlogs. It also triggered a wave of lawsuits. More than 460 federal judges have rejected the government’s interpretation, while just over 50 have upheld it. The rulings against the policy have been issued by judges appointed by presidents of both parties.

The Trump administration nevertheless maintains that the 1996 Immigration Act allows it to apply mandatory detention beyond the border and that previous administrations simply did not exercise all the authority that, according to its interpretation, they already possessed. The Department of Homeland Security said it was confident in its legal position and noted that it had recently asked the Supreme Court to review a similar decision.

Judge Allison Rushing, a Trump appointee, was the only member of the Fourth Circuit to dissent. She argued that the fact that previous administrations had not used all the authority the administration considers available does not mean that the current exercise of that authority is unlawful.

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