The Trump administration celebrated a significant legal triumph when a federal appeals court upheld a controversial immigration detention policy, effectively ending the possibility of bond for individuals currently held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

On July 8, ICE implemented this new directive, instructing agents to refuse bond to anyone who entered the United States without undergoing formal “inspection.” This policy has sparked a wave of legal challenges, with numerous detainees filing petitions for habeas corpus.

The policy dictates that such immigrants must remain in detention “for the duration of their removal proceedings,” unless they are granted parole—a much less common form of release. The Trump administration has made its intention clear that these detentions are meant to be indefinite.

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in a split decision, sided with the government, affirming that their stance is legally sound.

The contentious policy draws from a long-standing section of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which mandates that certain immigrants “shall be detained for a proceeding.” Traditionally, this provision has been applied only to those apprehended at the border.

However, the Trump administration has acknowledged a notable shift from past practices. In a memo from acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons, the federal government stated it has “revisited its legal position on detention and release authorities,” concluding that such immigrants “may not be released from ICE custody.”

Over the intervening months, in hundreds of disputes before district courts, judges have considered the interplay – and applicability – of two distinct statutes outlining the governments detention authority, using language sourced from a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

The government claims ICE has the authority to subject immigrants to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. §1225(b), which applies to “aliens seeking entry into the United States.”

Advocates for immigrants – as well as most judges who have ruled on the matter – have instead turned to 8 U.S.C. §1226(a), which applies to “aliens already present in the United States.”

Notably, upward of 360 district court judges, including many of those appointed by President Donald Trump himself, have rejected the position put forward by ICE about its detention authority, according to a rolling analysis of court rulings by Politico’s Kyle Cheney.

Now, settling the dispute within the confines of the 5th Circuit, at least, an appeals court has endorsed the ICE position.

The two-judge majority frames the immigrants’ position:

[T]he petitioners contend that “admission” means “the lawful entry of the alien into the United States after inspection and authorization by an immigration officer.” According to the petitioners, then, “seeking admission” refers only to those aliens who are actively pursuing lawful entry and submitting themselves to inspection by an immigration officer. When ICE apprehended the petitioners, neither was actively engaged in admissions procedures. Thus, they argue, they were not seeking admission and §1225(b)…does not apply to them.

In other words, the position taken by those supporting habeas relief has been that since the detainees in question are not in the active process of presenting themselves for inspection to immigration agents, they are not “seeking admission” under federal law.

Rather, advocates say, since the immigrants in question are not taking an immediate or formal action toward obtaining or changing their legal status when swept up in immigration raids, they are eligible for the parole statute.

The 5th Circuit majority savages this argument by likening the situation to a person who is seeking admission to college.

“Just as an applicant to a college seeks admission, an applicant for admission to the United States is ‘seeking admission’ to the same, regardless whether the person actively engages in further affirmative acts to gain admission,” the opinion reads. “The everyday meaning of the statute’s terms confirms that being an ‘applicant for admission’ is not a condition independent from ‘seeking admission.’”

The opinion goes on like this, at length:

It would make no sense to say that as soon as the applicant clicks “submit” on her application, she is no longer seeking admission, merely because she does not take any further affirmative steps to gain admittance. Instead, she would ordinarily be understood to be seeking admission as long as her application is pending. The same is true here. The petitioners are deemed, by statute, to be applicants for admission pending the resolution of removal proceedings. While they remain applicants, they are presently seeking admission. That “seeking admission” is equivalent to being an “applicant for admission” by operation of law…

The majority opinion was penned by Circuit Judge Edith Jones, a Ronald Reagan appointee, and joined by Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, a Donald Trump appointee. Writing in dissent is Dana M. Douglas, a Joe Biden appointee.

The dissent begins with a paean to precedent and the real-world implications of the ruling should it be nationalized:

The Congress that passed [the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996] IIRIRA would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people. For almost thirty years there was no sign anyone thought it had done so, and nothing in the congressional record or the history of the statute’s enforcement suggests that it did. Nonetheless, the government today asserts the authority and mandate to detain millions of noncitizens in the interior, some of them present here for decades, on the same terms as if they were apprehended at the border. No matter that this newly discovered mandate arrives without historical precedent, and in the teeth of one of the core distinctions of immigration law.

“The overwhelming majority of courts in this circuit and elsewhere have recognized that the government’s position is totally unsupported,” the dissent goes on. “Undeterred, the majority and the government distort the statutory text, abstract it from its context and history, ignore the Supreme Court’s clearly stated understanding of the statutory scheme, and wave away the agency’s previous failure to detain millions of noncitizens as if it were a rounding error.”