In a July 8 memorandum first obtained by the Washington Post, the Trump administration moved to effectively outlaw bond hearings for millions of immigrants awaiting court hearings. The policy change, outlined in a directive issued by acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons, orders ICE agents to imprison immigrants “for the duration of their removal proceedings,” which often last months or even years.

Lawyers who spoke to the Post said the directive will apply to “millions of immigrants,” who entered the US through the US-Mexico border “over the past few decades.”

According to data gathered by the Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, there are more than 3.4 million pending cases before US immigration courts. Of those, over 2.2 million involve immigrants awaiting asylum hearings before roughly 700 immigration judges.

Under previous administrations, immigrants were generally allowed to be released on bond while awaiting their hearings, in part because US immigration courts have been plagued for years by backlogs. As of March 2025, TRAC found that the average nationwide wait time for all hearings is 636 days, or nearly two years. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in June that asylum seekers wait an average of 4.5 years before their first immigration hearing, based on data from 2019 to 2025.

Through June 2025, TRAC found that immigration judges held 39,818 bond hearings and granted bond in 12,438 cases.

The new memo, the Post reported, seeks to eliminate bond hearings in virtually all circumstances. The newspaper stated that the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security under Trump had “revisited its legal position on detention and release authorities” and ruled that immigrants “may not be released from ICE custody.”

The memo stated that immigrants should be released on bond before their hearings only under “rare” circumstances and that such decisions will be made by ICE itself, not by an immigration judge.

The Post noted that Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott “issued similar guidance last week.” Neither federal agency responded to questions from the Post.

Trump’s ICE directive is a repudiation of the very principles invoked in the Declaration of Independence, reinstating the royal prerogative of arbitrary imprisonment. The Eighth Amendment prohibits “excessive bail” and, by implication, affirms that bail, or bond, should normally be available except in extraordinary cases such as flight risk or danger to society.

By categorically banning bond hearings for millions of immigrants—whose only “crime” in the vast majority of cases is fleeing a country facing sanctions, military invasion or provocations by US imperialism—ICE is not only imposing excessive bail but abolishing the right to bail entirely for a whole class of people, creating a system of indefinite detention.

The Supreme Court has historically ruled that even non-citizens are entitled to certain constitutional protections when on US soil. Zadvydas v. Davis (2001) upheld limits on the indefinite detention of immigrants. This directive openly flouts those precedents.

This fascistic measure is part of a broader campaign by the capitalist state to criminalize and terrorize the most vulnerable layers of the working class. Already this year, the Trump administration has revoked or rolled back protections for more than half a million immigrants under the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela parole program, while terminating Temporary Protected Status for roughly a million people, including hundreds of thousands of Haitians, many of whom have lived in the US for over a decade.

Conditions inside state-run and federal immigration detention centers are notoriously horrific and deadly. Last month, CBS News, citing a notice sent to Congress by ICE, reported that 13 people have died in ICE custody this year, surpassing the 12 deaths recorded in all of 2024.

Among those who have died in ICE custody this year is Johnny Noviello, a 49-year-old Canadian citizen who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 1991. Noviello was “found unresponsive” in the Bureau of Prisons Federal Detention Center in Miami on June 23, according to ICE.

The ICE memo eliminating bond hearings came just days after the passage of the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” This legislation allocates $175 billion for the immigration Gestapo and mass deportation operations, including the expansion of a network of for-profit concentration camps. The refusal to grant bond hearings is necessary to justify and fill the vast detention infrastructure financed by this bill, which is paid for through massive cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs for low-income people, including children.

The attacks on immigrants, including the elimination of bond hearings, are attacks on the democratic rights of the entire working class. What begins with immigrants will be expanded to target all American workers who engage in strikes, protests or political opposition to the ruling class and its government of, by and for the financial oligarchy.

The Trump administration is openly planning to expand the mass militarized deportation operation to target “home growns” and previously naturalized US citizens. To normalize the presence of troops on US streets, nearly 5,000 California National Guard soldiers and US Marines have been deployed to Los Angeles for over a month to assist the immigration police in its kidnapping operations.

On Tuesday, it was reported that roughly half of the 3,882 California National Guard contingent would be released from duty, leaving 1,892 members of the 49th Military Police Brigade. In a statement confirming the release, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell thanked “our troops who stepped up to answer the call,” claiming that “the lawlessness in Los Angeles is subsiding.” He added, “As such, the Secretary has ordered the release of 2,000 California National Guardsmen from the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team from the federal protection mission.”

Earlier this month, as part of Operation Excalibur, roughly 80 National Guard troops in military vehicles carried out a heavily militarized sweep-and-clear operation at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. The combat operation in the heavily immigrant community prompted widespread outrage and protests among residents.

Also on Tuesday, Military.com reported that a contingent of 500 Marines specializing in logistics and engineering, known as “Task Force Sapper,” will be swapped out along the US-Mexico border for a “combat logistics unit.”

The outlet noted that the new contingent is called “Task Force Forge” and is comprised of Marines from Combat Logistics Battalion 15, “which falls under the I Marine Expeditionary Force.” During the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) played a central role in the attack, entering Baghdad on April 9, 2003.