Your husband was picked up by ICE, and at his first hearing the judge said he is not eligible for bond at all. That answer is not settled law, it depends on which federal circuit he is detained in, and on October 1 the Supreme Court agreed to decide the question for the whole country.

The case is Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, No. 26-104. It comes out of the Second Circuit, which held in Cunha v. Freden, 175 F.4th 61 (2d Cir. Apr. 28, 2026), that a man who entered without inspection and was arrested years later inside the United States was detained under INA § 236(a), 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) — the provision that allows a bond hearing — and not under INA § 235(b)(2)(A), 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A), which allows none. The Second Circuit denied rehearing en banc on September 25, 2026. The Solicitor General’s petition was granted six days later.

Until the Court rules, where your family member sits decides whether he gets a bond hearing. That is not a figure of speech. It is the actual state of the law today.

What the two statutes actually say

Section 1226(a) is the default. On a warrant, “an alien may be arrested and detained pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed,” and the Attorney General “may release the alien on bond of at least $1,500” or on conditional parole, 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a)(2)(A). A bond hearing before an immigration judge, a redetermination, an appeal to the Board — all of that flows from § 1226(a).

Section 1225(b)(2)(A) has no bond in it. “[I]n the case of an alien who is an applicant for admission, if the examining immigration officer determines that an alien seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted, the alien shall be detained for a proceeding under section 1229a.” Shall be detained. The Supreme Court said in Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U.S. 281 (2018), that neither § 1225(b)(1) nor § 1225(b)(2) requires bond hearings.

The government’s argument runs through a definition. Section 1225(a)(1) says an “alien present in the United States who has not been admitted . . . shall be deemed for purposes of this chapter an applicant for admission.” So, the argument goes, anyone who entered without inspection is an applicant for admission, an applicant for admission is “seeking admission,” and § 1225(b)(2)(A) therefore mandates detention with no bond — whether ICE arrested him at the port of entry or at a traffic stop in Long Beach nine years later.

For roughly thirty years after IIRIRA, nobody read it that way. The government itself treated unadmitted people arrested in the interior as detained under § 1226(a) and bond-eligible. In July 2025 that changed by guidance, and in Matter of Yajure Hurtado, 29 I&N Dec. 216 (BIA 2025), the Board adopted the government’s reading and held that immigration judges have no authority to hear these bond requests at all. That is the decision your immigration judge is applying when he says there is no bond.

Why the answer depends on your ZIP code

Nine circuits have now rejected the government’s reading. Two have accepted it.

Against mandatory detention — bond hearings available:

First Circuit — Guerrero Orellana v. Moniz, No. 25-2152 (1st Cir. Aug. 13, 2026)
Second Circuit — Cunha v. Freden, 175 F.4th 61 (2d Cir. 2026)
Third Circuit — Buele Morocho v. Warden Philadelphia FDC, No. 26-1150 (3d Cir. Aug. 28, 2026)
Fourth Circuit — Lopez Garcia v. Guadian, No. 25-7044 (4th Cir. Sept. 10, 2026)
Sixth Circuit — Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft, No. 25-1965 (6th Cir. May 11, 2026)
Seventh Circuit — Rojas v. Olson, No. 25-3127 (7th Cir. July 30, 2026)
Ninth Circuit — Rodriguez Vazquez v. Bostock, No. 25-6842 (9th Cir. July 30, 2026)
Tenth Circuit — Santillan Quiroz v. Mullin, 180 F.4th 1226 (10th Cir. 2026)
Eleventh Circuit — Alvarez v. Warden, Federal Detention Center Miami, No. 25-14065 (11th Cir. May 6, 2026)

For mandatory detention — no bond:

Fifth Circuit — Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, 166 F.4th 494 (5th Cir. 2026). A separate certiorari petition in that case, No. 26-43, has been distributed for conference.
Eighth Circuit — Herrera Avila v. Bondi, 170 F.4th 1128 (8th Cir. 2026)

Read that list the way a detained family reads it. A man arrested in Houston and held in Texas has no bond hearing. The same man, same facts, transferred to a facility in California, is entitled to one. The government’s own petition for certiorari rests on that incoherence, and it is the reason the Court took the case.

California is in the better column, with an asterisk

In the Ninth Circuit, Rodriguez Vazquez controls. The panel affirmed summary judgment for a class of detained people in Western Washington and held that people present without admission who are apprehended in the interior are not subject to mandatory detention under § 1225(b)(2)(A). Judge Bress wrote that § 1225(b)(2)(A) is best read to reach people entering at the border, that the government’s reading creates surplusage, and that Congress does not make a change of that magnitude “through a cross-referenced deeming provision.”

Here is the part that matters and that you will not read on most firms’ websites: on September 23, 2026, a judge of the Ninth Circuit called for a vote on whether to rehear Rodriguez Vazquez en banc, and the parties were ordered to brief it. The panel decision binds today. It may not bind in three months. If you are sitting on a bond hearing in California because you assume the law is settled here, you are relying on a decision that is under active reconsideration in the same court that issued it.

What to actually do while the Court has the case

The tool right now is federal habeas, not patience. When the policy changed in July 2025, thousands of detained people filed habeas petitions seeking bond hearings. That is how Barbosa da Cunha got his — the district court granted the writ, and the Second Circuit affirmed. In circuits where the question is open or where the IJ is applying Yajure Hurtado against circuit law, a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in the district of confinement is the mechanism that produces a hearing. Waiting for the Supreme Court can mean months of detention that a habeas petition filed this week might have ended.

Winning the legal question gets you a hearing, not a release. This is where I temper every client’s expectations. If the Court holds that § 1226(a) governs, your relative becomes eligible for bond. Eligible. He still has to prove he is not a flight risk and not a danger to the community, and immigration judges are under real pressure to set bond high or deny it. The packet still has to be built: length of residence, U.S. citizen and resident family, employment history, tax returns, letters from employers and clergy, a sponsor with a stable address, and a clean or fully explained criminal record. A bond hearing with nothing in the file is a denial with extra steps.

Do not let the “no bond” answer go unchallenged on the record. Ask for the bond hearing. Make the IJ rule. If he says he lacks jurisdiction under Yajure Hurtado, that denial is what you take up — to the Board, to the district court on habeas, or both. An unpreserved issue is not available to you later, and in a question this unsettled the posture you create now is the posture you will litigate from in six months.

Track the transfer. Where ICE moves him changes the governing law. Detention transfers out of the Ninth Circuit into the Fifth or Eighth are not neutral administrative events in this landscape; they can take a bond hearing off the table. Know where he is, in writing, every time it changes.

The mistakes that cost people their hearings

The one I see most often is the family that hears “no bond” and stops. They treat it as a fact about the law rather than a position the government is taking, which nine circuits have now rejected and the Supreme Court has agreed to review. Weeks pass. Nothing is filed. The detention continues for no legal reason at all.

The second is the unrepresented bond hearing. Someone finally gets the hearing, walks in with no documents, and the judge denies bond on flight risk. That denial follows the case. Getting it reopened is harder than getting it right the first time.

The third is the person who signs something at the facility. Stipulated removal, voluntary departure, a withdrawal of the application for admission — paperwork handed over in a detention setting ends the case and ends the bond question with it. Nothing gets signed without a lawyer reading it first.

Where this goes

The Court granted certiorari on October 1, 2026. Briefing follows, argument will be set, and a decision in the ordinary course comes by the end of the term. Nobody can tell you how it will come out, and the Court granted the government’s petition from a decision that went against the government, which is worth knowing without reading anything into it.

What I can tell you is that the months between now and then are the months your relative is either detained or home. That is decided case by case, in habeas petitions and bond packets filed now, not by the opinion that issues next summer.

If someone in your family was picked up and told there is no bond, the question of whether a habeas petition belongs on file is one to answer this week. Call (562) 495-0554 or book a free consultation at blerner.timetap.com. Consultations on detention and removal matters are free.

This article is general information about United States immigration law and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Immigration outcomes depend on the specific facts of each case. Law Offices of Brian D. Lerner, A Professional Corporation, 3233 E. Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. Brian D. Lerner is a Certified Specialist in Immigration and Nationality Law, The State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization.