Bond hearings plunged 70%
Bond hearings in immigration courts fell by about 70% last month amid new Trump-era detention policies and operational constraints, a drop that signals real difficulty securing release hearings for detained clients. That decline creates pressure points for removal-defense strategy and timing. (reuters.com)
The drop in February’s bond calendar coincided with nationwide internal guidance from EOIR’s Office of the Chief Immigration Judge instructing immigration judges to treat Matter of Yajure-Hurtado as binding precedent, a directive issued by Chief Immigration Judge Teresa L. Riley on Jan. 13, 2026. On Feb. 18, 2026 a federal judge in the Central District of California, U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes, vacated the BIA’s Matter of Yajure-Hurtado in Maldonado Bautista and ordered class notice and opportunities for bond hearings for the affected class. (AILA practice alert; wilneroreilly.com/understanding-the-courts-order-vacating-matter-of-yajure-hurtado) A competing appellate ruling landed earlier in February when a 5th Circuit panel upheld the administration’s reinterpretation of detention law on Feb. 6, 2026, producing a circuit split that DOJ and EOIR cited as a reason for narrowing or pausing bond dockets in many venues. Operational strain amplified the legal conflict: ICE’s detained population surged to more than 72,000 by the end of January 2026, increasing transfers and facility congestion that advocates and courts say hampered routine scheduling of custody redeterminations. The immigration-court backlog remained massive at roughly 3.3 million pending matters at the end of February 2026, reducing IJ capacity for new bond calendars and lengthening adjournments for detained dockets. (tracreports.org; eoirdata.com) Federal and district-court activity has generated hundreds of habeas and class filings—Politico counted about 373 district judges rejecting the administration’s mandatory-detention theory in numerous cases—forcing practitioners to prioritize immediate habeas relief and targeted venue filings over routine bond motions in many jurisdictions.
