by Karim Golding
They say the quiet part out loud now.
In July 2025, ICE issued a directive: no more bond hearings for immigrants, period. Whether you’ve lived here 20 years, showed up to every check-in, or fled persecution with your children—if you’re undocumented, you’re presumed detainable and deportable without judicial review.
But if you’re shocked, you haven’t been paying attention.
This isn’t new. It’s the culmination of a decades-long bipartisan project to criminalize migration and strip people of freedom, due process, and dignity.
Let’s get into it.
The Legal Lie: Why This Policy Is Unconstitutional
ICE is trying to do what Congress never fully authorized and the Constitution never allowed.
Even if they claim §1225 and §1226 of the INA allow mandatory detention, case law says otherwise:
– Zadvydas v. Davis (2001): You can’t detain someone indefinitely without removal prospects.
– Demore v. Kim (2003): Detention must be brief and removal must be swift.
– Jennings v. Rodriguez (2018): Constitutional challenges to long-term detention remain.
– Boumediene v. Bush (2008): Even offshore detainees get habeas. Immigrants in U.S. jails do too.
Let’s not forget: immigration judges are not Article III judges. They work for the Attorney General. When the AG says “don’t hear bond,” many judges comply—because they’re employees, not independent jurists.
What We Do Now
Here’s how we push back. In the tradition of participatory defense, legal empowerment, and abolitionist strategy, we use every tool in our kit:
1. File Habeas in Federal Court
Immigration court may be closed, but federal court isn’t. File habeas corpus petitions under Zadvydas, Jennings, and Boumediene in the district court. Demand bond hearings as a constitutional right. Freedom To Thrive and The Law Library provide templates and training to do this pro se or with legal aid.
2. Use the Parole Loophole (8 CFR § 212.5)
Even under the new rules, ICE can release people on humanitarian parole. Prepare strong packets with:
– Letters from sponsors,
– Proof of illness or hardship,
– Community ties,
– Evidence of trafficking or abuse.
3. Assert TVPRA Protections
Many migrants—especially from Vietnam, China, Haiti, and Central America—were smuggled under false promises or coercion. That’s trafficking. Use the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) to demand CFI reconsideration, protection screenings, and release.
4.Organize: Build Court Support & Community Defense Teams
– Create case support teams that mobilize sponsors, prep release packets, and advocate daily.
– Train family members to file habeas petitions and parole requests.
– Engage the media to expose ICE abuse and pressure local field offices.
The Strategy Isn’t New—But Neither Is Our Resistance
They’ve always tried to cage us. From Ellis Island to Guantánamo, from slave patrols to ICE raids, the playbook is the same: criminalize, isolate, disappear.
But we’ve always fought back. And we win when we organize.
At Freedom To Thrive, we believe freedom is not something granted by ICE, but claimed by people who demand it—through legal action, storytelling, community defense, and abolitionist imagination.
Let’s turn these cages into classrooms. Let’s turn detention centers into battlegrounds for dignity.
Let’s remind ICE: What Freedom Means
* This is not legal advice as we are not attorneys.
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