The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has handed immigration attorneys in Kentucky a significant legal victory, ruling that detained immigrants must receive bond hearings rather than face indefinite detention without due process. The 2-1 ruling, issued Monday, May 11, by a panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, applies to federal courts in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. The decision is a blow to President Donald Trump’s administration, which has pushed a policy that noncitizens who have lived in the country for years must be detained pending deportation without the opportunity to argue for a bond in immigration court. The policy shift underlying the ruling stems from July 2025, when the Trump administration argued the law lets them deny immigrants a bond hearing in essentially every immigration court proceeding. The law “ensures that noncitizens like Petitioners should have a forum to explain that their backgrounds and connections to their communities justify release on bond while they undergo their removal proceedings,” the court stated. For Louisville immigration attorney Duffy Trager, the ruling provides critical relief to detainees across the region. “It provides a lot of legal basis for people with open habeas petitions to prevail,” Trager said, though he noted considerable uncertainty remains in individual cases. Federal judges in Kentucky’s Western District have granted roughly three out of four habeas petitions reviewed, ordering detainees released in many cases. However, winning a habeas petition is not a guarantee of freedom. Cincinnati-based immigration attorney Sarah Larcade said it’s frustrating to win a client’s habeas case, only to have bond denied, with judges saying “‘Oh, you’re a flight risk,’ or ‘You’re a danger,’ and deny bond”. For decades, the administration and advocates agreed that people who presented themselves at the border could be denied bond and detained while their immigration cases proceeded, but if someone was already in the country when found, they were typically granted bond in their immigration cases. Two other federal appellate courts, the Second and Eleventh Circuits, issued similar rulings, but the Fifth and Eighth Circuits sided with the Trump administration, creating a “circuit split” where the U.S. Supreme Court routinely takes up cases to resolve disagreements. Attorneys expect the U.S. Supreme Court to eventually weigh in, and if the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 majority of Republican-appointed judges, were to rule in Trump’s favor, that would once again allow the widespread denial of bond hearings to immigrants held in Kentucky jails. Trager cautioned that despite the ruling’s promise, many detainees remain unable to navigate the legal system without professional help. “There’s just a ton of people who are sitting in custody right now who really aren’t able to navigate the complexities of this legal situation on their own,” he said. This article was generated by AI (claude-haiku-4-5-20251001) based on source material from KY Center for Investigative Reporting, enriched with 2 web searches. The original source is available at https://www.lpm.org/investigate/2026-05-18/kentucky-immigration-attorneys-hopeful-in-wake-of-federal-court-ruling. The post Federal Appeals Court Ruling Gives Kentucky Immigrants Hope for Bond Hearings appeared first on The Lexington Times. ...read more read less