A protester holds an upside-down U.S. flag next to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents standing guard outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building during a demonstration against increased immigration enforcement, days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., January 10, 2026. Tyrone Siu / Reuters file

A divided federal appeals court upheld on Friday the Trump administration`s policy of placing people arrested in its immigration crackdown in mandatory detention without an opportunity to be released on bond.

The decision by a conservative 2-1 panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals marked the first time an appeals court had upheld the policy and came despite hundreds of lower-court judges nationally declaring it unlawful.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the ruling on social media as dealing "a significant blow against activist judges who have been undermining our efforts to make America safe again at every turn."

The ruling is expected to impact thousands of people as the court‘s jurisdiction covers Texas and Louisiana, which are dotted with detention centers and house the most immigration detainees.

The The Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center is seen in this aerial photo in Jena, La., in April 8, 2025. Gerald Herbert / AP file

Other appeals courts are slated in coming weeks to take up the issue, which the U.S. Supreme Court may ultimately need to resolve.

Under federal immigration law, "applicants for admission" to the United States are subject to mandatory detention while their cases proceed in immigration courts and are ineligible for bond hearings.

Bucking a long-standing interpretation of the law, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last year took the position that non-citizens already residing in the United States, and not only those who arrive at a port of entry at the border, qualify as applicants for admission.

The Board of Immigration Appeals, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice, issued a decision in September that adopted that interpretation, leading to immigration judges nationally employed by the department to mandate detention.

A flood of lawsuits ensued from people arguing they were wrongly detained. Among them were the plaintiffs in the cases before the 5th Circuit, Mexican nationals Victor Buenrostro-Mendez and Jose Padron Covarrubias, both of whom had convinced lower-court judges they were wrongly denied bond hearings.

But U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones said the administration`s re-interpretation of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 was correct.

"The text says what it says, regardless of the decisions of prior administrations," she wrote for the panel`s majority, which included two judges named by Republican presidents.

U.S. Circuit Judge Dana Douglas, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, dissented, saying the Congress that passed the 1996 law "would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people."