Conservative Legal Experts Say the Fifth Circuit's No-Bond-Hearing Ruling Could Strengthen Trump's Hand in a Coming Supreme Court Fight

Fox News reports that Friday's Fifth Circuit win for the Trump administration could help it when the Supreme Court takes up a closely related immigration detention case.

The ruling. The full Fifth Circuit held in Sosnava Rodriguez v. Ortega that three immigrant men held under the mandatory-detention law are not constitutionally entitled to bond hearings. Their years or decades in the country, and their ties to communities here, create no such right, the court said: "The Constitution does not entitle them to a bond hearing." We reported on the decision on Saturday.

The case ahead. The Supreme Court will hear Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, which asks whether the mandatory-detention statute applies at all to longtime immigrants arrested inside the country. Fox describes a 9-2 split among appeals courts. The Fifth and Eighth Circuits say people who entered illegally and were never admitted remain "applicants for admission" under Section 1225 and can be held without a bond hearing. Nine other circuits say Section 1226 applies instead, which allows a bond request. Barbosa da Cunha is a Brazilian national who crossed illegally about two decades ago and was detained in 2025.

The risk. Fox says that if the justices side with the Second Circuit, the Rodriguez men would likely get a path to bond too, and Friday's constitutional holding would matter far less. Judge Leslie Southwick made the same point in dissent.

The argument for the government. Michael Morley of Florida State University told Fox courts often ask whether a reading of a law would raise constitutional problems, so the Fifth Circuit's finding that due process allows this detention "may impact the Supreme Court's reasoning." Hans von Spakovsky of Advancing American Freedom said, "I will be surprised if a majority of the Supreme Court disagrees." Fox says the court has not yet scheduled argument in Rhoney, which it took up earlier this month.

Note for readers: both experts quoted are conservative, as Fox's own framing says, and their forecasts are predictions, not rulings. The Fox piece does not include a reply from the immigrants' lawyers. Our earlier report gave a different argument date for the Supreme Court case, so we are relying on Fox's statement that none is set for Rhoney.