Immigration judges at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, began denying bond to detained immigrants years before the Trump administration adopted the same approach as national policy, according to immigration attorneys and court records reviewed by the Associated Press. The Tacoma court’s quiet shift away from releasing detained immigrants on bond went largely unnoticed outside the small circle of immigration lawyers who practice there — even as the judges’ reasoning prefigured the legal theory the administration would later deploy at scale.
Matt Adams, an immigration attorney with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project who has practiced in Tacoma for years, told the AP that the no-bond practice at the Northwest ICE Processing Center represented a significant departure from long-standing norms. Under the traditional framework, detained immigrants were generally eligible for release on bond while their removal proceedings moved through the immigration court system. The Tacoma judges’ willingness to deny bond in a wide range of cases, Adams said, was an early signal of the sea change that has since transformed federal immigration enforcement.
The Trump administration adopted a nationwide no-bond policy last year, applying the approach across immigration courts throughout the country. The policy has drawn tens of thousands of lawsuits since July, with plaintiffs arguing that prolonged detention without bond hearings violates constitutional protections against illegal confinement. The legal challenges have produced a split among federal appeals courts. Two circuits upheld the administration’s approach, while a third appeals court rejected it this month — creating the kind of circuit split that often draws Supreme Court review.
The Tacoma court’s early adoption of no-bond practices provides a window into how the policy operates at the ground level. Immigration attorneys practicing at the Northwest ICE Processing Center have challenged the bond denials for years, arguing they violate due process protections and mark a break with the American legal tradition of presuming that detained individuals are eligible for release while their cases are adjudicated. Those challenges, like the nationwide lawsuits now flooding federal courts, have gained limited traction — until the recent appellate ruling that set the stage for a possible Supreme Court examination of the practice.