Fifth Circuit Denial Nears SCOTUS
The Fifth Circuit denied en banc rehearing in a case about mandatory immigration detention, a move that observers say likely sends the issue toward the Supreme Court. The denial and related filings were flagged with a court PDF shared publicly (x.com).
A federal appeals court just left standing a ruling that says some people who crossed into the United States years ago can still be locked up without a bond hearing while their deportation cases move forward. The case is Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, and the Fifth Circuit’s docket showed a last known filing on April 2, 2026 after the February 6, 2026 panel decision. (courtlistener.com) The fight is over two parts of immigration law that work like two different holding lanes. One lane, 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), usually allows an immigration judge to set bond, while the other, 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A), says the person “shall be detained” during the case. (ca5.uscourts.gov) On February 6, 2026, a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said the government had been using the tougher lane for these detainees. Judge Edith Jones wrote that the petitioners were “applicants for admission” because they were present in the country without lawful admission, even though they had entered many years earlier. (ca5.uscourts.gov) That is a sharp break from the way immigration detention had usually worked for decades. A February 2026 practice advisory from the National Immigration Project said people who entered without inspection had generally been detained under Section 1226(a) and could ask an immigration judge for bond. (nipnlg.org) The panel did not just reject bond in these two cases. It reversed district court orders that would have required bond hearings or release, and it said the government’s reading of the statute was correct. (ca5.uscourts.gov) The bigger legal backdrop is a 2018 Supreme Court case called Jennings v. Rodriguez. In that case, the Supreme Court rejected the Ninth Circuit’s reading that immigration statutes like Section 1225(b) could be interpreted to require automatic bond hearings after six months. (supremecourt.gov) Jennings did not settle this exact question, because it focused on whether courts could read time limits and recurring bond hearings into the statute. Buenrostro asks a different question: which detention statute applies in the first place to someone who entered unlawfully long ago and is now being put into removal proceedings. (supremecourt.gov; ca5.uscourts.gov) That distinction reaches far beyond two names on a caption. Politico reported in September 2025 that the Board of Immigration Appeals had adopted the same broad reading, and that the change could expand mandatory detention to millions of people already living inside the United States. (politico.com) After the panel ruling, lawyers for the detainees sought rehearing by the full Fifth Circuit, which is called rehearing en banc. Public filings show that petition was filed on March 23, 2026, and the court has now denied that request, leaving the panel opinion in place. (documentcloud.org; courtlistener.com) That usually means the next stop is a petition to the Supreme Court. If the justices take it, they would be deciding whether the government can treat long-settled, unlawfully present noncitizens as if they are still at the front door for detention purposes, with no bond hearing at all. (supremecourt.gov; ca5.uscourts.gov)
