The Trump administration has made a major change to immigration policy, now requiring people in the U.S. without legal status, who are arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to stay in detention while their deportation cases move forward. This is a sudden break from a long-standing practice that allowed non-citizens who were not considered a flight risk or a danger to public safety to be released on bail while their cases were being heard in immigration court.
According to NPR, the new rule was sent to all ICE employees in an email on July 8. The agency claims it is using its “very broad” authority to reinterpret current law. As a result, even people who have lived and worked in the U.S. for many years, with strong ties to their communities, are now being held under the same detention rules as those who were recently caught entering the country illegally.
