The Denver-based federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday against the government’s broad assertion of authority to keep people in immigration custody without the opportunity to demonstrate their suitability for release on bond.

Although the regional appeals courts have reached different conclusions on the subject, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit decided the government was improperly claiming a power to detain people without bond that only applies “at the border.”

“Congress may simply have concluded that detention in the interior wasn’t necessary: the usual purpose of civil immigration detention is to prevent noncitizens from absconding to avoid removal, but those with strong connections to the community are less likely to do so. Or Congress may have had constitutional concerns because due process protections are far stronger for noncitizens inside the country than at the border,” wrote Judge Richard E.N. Federico in the panel’s June 30 opinion.

“Perhaps some of these reasons motivated Congress. Perhaps none did,” he continued. “In any case, the role of the court is not to impose its views of optimal immigration policy. Its job is simply to apply the law as written.”

The precedent-setting decision will have major ramifications in Colorado, where the state’s federal trial court has faced a flood of “habeas corpus” petitions from those in immigration custody. The most common allegation is that the government is improperly denying bond hearings to people who are eligible by law. Colorado’s judges, like the vast majority of their peers nationwide, have almost uniformly agreed that the government is improperly detaining people without the opportunity for release.

Last week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which defends against the habeas petitions, began to file responses that declined to advance arguments in opposition.

“Habeas petitions will diminish if government officials adhere to the ruling by providing detention hearings. It is difficult to see how the current administration will react, especially in light of the circuit split and the inevitability of an eventual Supreme Court decision,” said retired U.S. Magistrate Judge Kristen L. Mix. Colorado’s federal judges “will undoubtedly follow the circuit’s decision and mandate detention hearings for habeas petitioners in the circumstances addressed here.”

The 10th Circuit’s decision arose out of Oklahoma, after a judge determined Rigoberto Santillan Quiroz was not eligible for a bond hearing following his November 2025 detention. His confinement came two months after the appellate body for immigration cases, which is part of the executive branch, agreed that the mandatory detentions authorized for those “seeking admission” to the country applied to those who have been present in the United States for an extended period.

Federico, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote that Santillan Quiroz was not “seeking admission” after having lived in the United States for 20 years.

“The only time a noncitizen can be said to be seeking admission is when he is seeking to enter the United States at the border,” Federico wrote. “Noncitizens in Santillan Quiroz’s position — that is, those who entered the United States without admission and who have lived here since — are categorically unable to seek admission while they remain in the country. Part of the reason is a matter of logic and common sense. A person cannot make a present request for permission to enter the United States, lawfully or otherwise, once he or she has already entered.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Multiple immigration attorneys contacted by Colorado Politics also did not provide an immediate reaction.

Federico added that, while the panel was not deciding whether the government’s decision violated the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution, “the mandatory detention of potentially millions of noncitizens without the potential for bond raises exactly such serious concerns.”

“Due process requires that, whenever the Government detains somebody, it must have a good reason for doing so,” he wrote. The U.S. Supreme Court “has never said that due process protections fall away completely in the immigration context. Quite the opposite.”

While large numbers of cases in Colorado have been resolved solely on the question of mandatory detention versus the opportunity for bond, judges have also addressed the due process argument. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Daniel D. Domenico, who has adopted the government’s view on bond eligibility, has also authored orders stating that the Constitution does not provide people whose immigration cases are being adjudicated “a liberty interest in being released from immigration detention as a matter of procedural due process.”

Domenico, who is President Donald Trump’s nominee to an upcoming vacancy on the 10th Circuit, also told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that the constitutional due process guarantee is “mostly for citizens.”

Advancing a different view, Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak authored an order on Monday concluding that even people subject to mandatory immigration detention have a right to due process.

“If the Court is wrong, let another court declare that a noncitizen with no criminal history, no history of flight, and an adjudicated right to asylum may be detained indefinitely without running afoul of the Due Process Clause,” he wrote.

The case is Santillan Quiroz v. Mullin et al.