U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has moved to detain far more people than before by tapping a legal authority to jail anyone who entered the country illegally without allowing them a bond hearing.
Todd Lyons, ICE's acting director, wrote employees on July 8 that the agency was revisiting its "extraordinarily broad and equally complex" authority to detain people and that, effective immediately, people would be ineligible for a bond hearing before an immigration judge . Instead, they cannot be released unless the Homeland Security Department makes an exception.
The directive, first reported by The Washington Post, signals wider use of a 1996 law to detain people who had previously been allowed to remain free while their cases wind through immigration court.
Asked Tuesday to comment on the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, "The Biden administration dangerously unleashed millions of unvetted illegal aliens into the country - and they used many loopholes to do so. President Donald Trump and Secretary Kristi Noem are now enforcing this law as it was actually written to keep America safe."
McLaughlin said ICE will have "plenty of bed space" after Trump signed a law that spends about 170 billion on border and immigration enforcement. It puts ICE on the cusp of staggering growth, infusing it with 76.5 billion over five years, or nearly 10 times its current annual budget. That includes 45 billion for detention.