The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration's mandatory detention policy, the most recent loss in court for the administration and perhaps the most significant, as the court covers Nevada, California, Arizona and Washington, an area that contains millions of foreign-born people. 

On Thursday, a California-based panel of judges ruled that the administration's policy of locking up nearly everyone in deportation proceedings is unlawful. In their decision, the judges said the policy does not apply to individuals who are apprehended within the country's interior and should only apply to individuals apprehended at the border. It stipulated the policy still applies to people who are deemed a flight risk or danger.

"That no administration has ever found a duty to mandatorily detain unadmitted aliens present in the interior of the country is strong evidence that it does not exist," Judge Daniel Bress, a Trump appointee, wrote in the decision. 

The mandatory policy, which took effect in July 2025, overturned decades of immigration precedent by letting U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement lock up nearly everyone facing deportation without the chance to be released on bond. It has led to thousands of habeas corpus petitions nationwide, and hundreds of judges have rejected the policy, including a handful of appellate courts. 

The Thursday ruling signals a massive win for immigration advocates in the area, especially considering that the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of the Trump administration's policy earlier this year. The area covered by the 9th Circuit contains parts of the Southern border and states with some of the highest undocumented populations.

Before the policy's implementation, individuals who had not committed aggravated felonies or were issued a removal order at the border could seek bond.

The ruling also comes after a federal judge in Nevada, Richard Boulware II, rejected the mass deportation policy in March. Boulware said in his decision that the policy violated federal law and caused "irreparable harm" to those who are arrested.