5. Department of Homeland Security · Notable
Issue new guidance on immigration detention and bond
Printed page 141 5. Department of Homeland Security
“Issue clear guidance regarding detention and bond for aliens. … This occurs primarily because of poorly worded bond regulations, contradictory bond policy memoranda, and poor practices for managing released aliens and the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) Program, which requires significant reform.”
What has happened
- Partially done
Matter of Yajure Hurtado extended the reading to everyone present without admission: immigration judges "lack authority to hear bond requests or to grant bond" for them. Detention and bond policy has been settled for the largest category of detainees, and the Alternatives to Detention reform the Quote also asks for exists only as a redacted change to check-in frequency, so this remains `partial`.
- Partially done
The Alternatives to Detention limb, which the earlier pass recorded as untouched, is touched. An ERO message to all ERO personnel, *Increase of In-Person Check-Ins at Contractor Offices for ATD Participants*, states: "Please see below for changes to reporting requirements for aliens assigned to the ATD program", signed by the Acting Assistant Director, Non-Detained Management, "in concurrence with AD Field Operations". The substance of the change is withheld in full under FOIA exemption (b)(7)(E), so what is on the record is that ICE changed ATD reporting practice in the window and in the direction of more in-person supervision, not what the new requirement is. A related instrument, *ERO Policy Number 24000: Revised Reporting Requirements for Non-Detained Migrants*, is in the same reading room. "Significant reform" of the ATD program, which is what the Quote asks, cannot be read off a redacted email; the rung does not move.
- Partially done
The Board of Immigration Appeals held in Matter of Q. Li that an applicant for admission arrested and detained without a warrant is detained under INA section 235(b) and is "ineligible for any subsequent release on bond" under section 236(a), and that a person whose parole is terminated returns to section 235(b) custody. The bond question the Quote calls poorly worded is now answered department-wide by precedent rather than by the ICE guidance the Quote asked for — delivery by another instrument, so `partial`.
- Partially done
ICE issued the detention guidance the Quote asks for, on the widest category of aliens and in its own name. Acting Director Caleb Vitello's *Implementation Guidance for January 2025 Federal Register Notice, Designating Aliens for Expedited Removal* instructs all ICE employees on applying the Acting Secretary's 2025-01-21 designation, which "exercised the full scope of the Secretary's expedited removal authority" under INA §235(b)(1) — the provision that carries mandatory detention and, on the Board's later reading, no bond. Clear guidance on detention, issued as a memorandum to the whole workforce, which is the instrument the Quote names. It is `partial` and not `done` because the Quote asks for guidance on *detention and bond* together and this document addresses the removal track rather than the bond regulations it calls poorly worded. Found in ICE's FOIA reading room, which does publish policy memoranda and does answer a control-tested keyword search.
- Attempted
EO 14165 section 5 directs the Secretary to detain aliens "to the fullest extent permitted by law" and to "issue new policy guidance or propose regulations regarding the appropriate and consistent use of lawful detention authority under the INA, including the termination of the practice commonly known as 'catch-and-release'". That is an order to produce the guidance this Quote asks for; on this date none had issued.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
The ICE memorandum of July 2025 instructing officers that people who entered without inspection are to be detained for the duration of proceedings is reported by one allowlisted outlet only and is therefore a lead, not Evidence. The Board of Immigration Appeals decisions above settle the same question on the record and are Primary.
Reviewed 2026-09-06 — the July memo was not found, and something better was. We looked for a second outlet or the memorandum itself. Neither exists on an allowlisted source. What does exist is ICE’s FOIA reading room (ice.gov/foia/library), which is a real index and a working search: it runs to 179 pages and filters by category (Policies, Procedures and Manuals is one), by year and by keyword. Its search can be trusted: “bond” returns two memoranda, while a nonsense query returns “There are no ICE FOIA items that match your current filter criteria” — a real negative, unlike DHS’s publications library (dhs.gov/publications-library), which silently ignores the query. Searches run: “bond” (nothing in 2025 or 2026), “custody” (nothing after 2024), “Lyons” (nothing), “alternatives to detention” (nothing after 2017), and the complete Policies, Procedures and Manuals listings for 2025 (25 items) and 2026 (7 items) read in full. No July 2025 detention memorandum has been released. The two documents that did surface are the second and third events above.
- Action
- issue
- Object
- ICE detention and bond guidance
- ID
- 311