A Trump-appointed federal judge led a unanimous appeals court panel Tuesday in rejecting the administration’s policy of holding nearly all undocumented immigrants in mandatory detention without bond — creating a national circuit split that lands as Colorado’s own federal courts are divided on the same question, with the state’s chief federal judge standing as the lone local voice agreeing with the government.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled April 28 that the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy violates federal law by failing to distinguish between immigrants who recently crossed the border and those who have lived in the United States for years or decades. Writing for the unanimous panel, Circuit Judge Joseph F. Bianco, a Trump appointee, said the government’s interpretation “defies the statute’s context, structure, history, and purpose” and noted that more than 370 federal judges across the country had also rejected the government’s position. Even if the administration’s reading were plausible, Bianco wrote, the policy would raise constitutional concerns over what he described as the broadest mass-detention-without-bond mandate in the nation’s history.
The ruling creates a direct conflict with the Fifth and Eighth Circuits, which upheld the policy in their jurisdictions in 2-1 decisions. That circuit split makes Supreme Court review probable.
In Colorado, the picture is divided. Every U.S. District Court judge in the District of Colorado except one has rejected the government’s mandatory detention argument in individual habeas cases. The exception is Chief Judge Daniel D. Domenico, a Trump appointee who issued an April 15 order siding with the administration’s interpretation in the case of an Indian man apprehended near the border in 2024. Domenico acknowledged in his order that his view is the outlier position on his own court, but found the Fifth and Eighth Circuit reasoning persuasive. His ruling does not bind his colleagues.
The mandatory detention question has particular salience in Colorado because of the state’s active ICE hold room network. Nine hold rooms operated across Colorado between January and October 2025, holding more than 2,800 detainees, according to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and reported by the Colorado Times Recorder. Hold rooms are informal detention facilities — often located in office parks, warehouses, and ICE substations — that are not required to contain beds and are held to different standards than official detention centers. Agency policy limits hold room stays to 72 hours, but federal data showed thousands of violations of that rule nationally, with some stays lasting weeks or months. ICE has not responded to questions about hold room operations.
The Second Circuit’s ruling is binding only within its jurisdiction — Connecticut, New York, and Vermont. It does not directly govern cases in Colorado, which falls within the Tenth Circuit. The Denver-based Tenth Circuit has not yet addressed the mandatory detention question at the appellate level. Until it does — or until the Supreme Court acts — Colorado district judges are writing their own answers, and those answers are not unanimous.
In a statement Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security said the administration is enforcing detention law as it was written and predicted it would be “vindicated by higher courts.”
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