WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a challenge to a Trump administration policy that subjects millions of people living in the United States without lawful status to mandatory detention without bond hearings during deportation proceedings, Reuters reported.
The justices granted review in Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha (No. 26-104), an administration appeal of a Second Circuit ruling for Brazilian national Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, who entered unlawfully around 2004–2005, was arrested in Massachusetts in September 2025, initially denied a bond hearing, and later released on bond. The Department of Homeland Security’s July 2025 guidance treated noncitizens already inside the country as “applicants for admission” under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A), reversing a nearly three-decade interpretation that allowed bond for many interior cases.
Reuters analysis earlier found hundreds of judges had ruled thousands of times that the detention policy was unlawful; immigrants have filed more than 73,000 related federal cases this year. ACLU lawyer Michael K.T. Tan called the policy “cruel and inhumane” and unlawful. A DHS spokesperson welcomed the grant, saying the department had “implemented the law as Congress intended” and faulting prior “catch-and-release” practice. Argument falls in the term that opens Monday; a decision is due by the end of June.
Sources: Reuters, SCOTUSblog
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