A federal appeals court ruling in May that President Donald Trump's administration wrongly denied bond hearings to many immigrants locked up in Kentucky jails by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not had the hoped-for effect, according to attorneys.
While judges are ordering more bond hearings since the ruling, many immigrants are being denied bond or are given a high bond amount they're unlikely to be able to pay, according to a Kentucky Center for Investigative review of court records and interviews with local and national immigration attorneys.
In May, attorneys told KyCIR they were hopeful the ruling from the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals would lead to more bond hearings for immigrants held in local jails and, in turn, provide an avenue for their release from custody while their cases work through the legal system.
But four months after the ruling, attorneys say it's even harder to get their clients out of jail.
"I hate to admit it, and I do think the Sixth Circuit was right," said Duffy Trager, a Louisville immigration attorney. "But in many ways, for many people, it seems like they're almost worse off now."
There's a nationwide legal fight over immigrant bond hearings because Trump officials changed a longstanding federal policy in July 2025 and decreed that even immigrants who've lived in the U.S. for a long time should be jailed until their deportation case is decided. Before then, such mandatory detention generally was reserved for recent immigrants and people stopped near a U.S. border.
U.S. appeals courts are divided on whether the policy change is legal, and the Supreme Court is likely to eventually weigh in. But the Sixth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over Kentucky, ruled against Trump on May 11 and said the administration violated many immigrants' constitutional rights by refusing to give them a bond hearing.
To examine the ruling's impact, KyCIR reviewed over 400 habeas corpus petitions by immigrants in the U.S. Western District of Kentucky court, including cases filed as recently as late August. Some cases were unrelated to the bond issue, and many were still unresolved.
KyCIR identified 178 cases since the May appeals court ruling where a U.S. district judge ordered that an immigrant either be released from ICE detention or given a bond hearing.
Of those people, 76 were released from jail. KyCIR found 95 people who received bond hearings and got a decision from an immigration judge. However, judges denied bond in about 80% of those cases. Judges granted bond to just 18 people, according to KyCIR's review.
In several other cases, a judge ordered someone released or given a bond hearing but that ultimately didn't happen for some other reason, such as the person agreed to voluntarily leave the country or already was deported.
Nationwide, immigration judges granted bond in only 30% of cases from Oct. 2025 through June 2026, according to federal records analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
When someone wins a bond, they have to be able to pay to get out of ICE detention. Of the granted bonds nationally, the median amount is $6,500.
Among the 18 cases KyCIR identified where immigration judges granted bond to people jailed by ICE in Western Kentucky, bond amounts ranged from $1,500 to $25,000. In 11 of those cases, the amount exceeded the recent national median amount.
The Kentucky court cases KyCIR reviewed give a glimpse into the bond hearing process. It doesn't show how many people proactively received hearings without needing to file a habeas petition to force the issue.
Michael Martinez, a Louisville immigration attorney, thinks the appeals court made the right ruling, but said attorneys like himself were able to get more people out of ICE detention by filing habeas petitions before the ruling.
"The big picture is that it has been harder to get people out because, on paper, they're getting the due process of a bond hearing," he said. And for those that do get a hearing, he said almost all his clients were denied bond.
When an overwhelming majority of immigrants are denied bond, he said, it calls into question whether they're really getting their constitutionally required due process.
KyCIR asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, and the U.S. Department of Justice, which houses the immigration courts, for comment for this article. They did not provide one.
Who's really a flight risk or public danger?
Attorneys told KyCIR immigration judges are denying bond to people who clearly should qualify for it, disregarding factors like someone's deep community ties or non-violent criminal record. For example, Trager said he has seen people denied bond just because they were charged for driving without a license.
Immigration judges didn't always lay out their reasoning in the bond decisions KyCIR reviewed. When they did, common reasons cited for denying bond included living in the U.S. for a relatively short time or being charged or convicted of a violent crime or of driving under the influence.
In one case, a judge acknowledged the person had no criminal history but said they didn't provide letters of support attesting to their "character in the community." In others, judges cited a lack of family or community ties in the U.S. as an issue. And in some, judges said that even though the person had roots in their town, they were still a flight risk.
Rekha Sharma-Crawford, second vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the current bond hearing system is a "sham."
"They have really kind of gone wholescale off the rails with what they consider to be a flight risk or what they consider to be a danger to the community. I mean, logic is no longer in the room," she said.
Immigration judges work under the president-led executive branch, not the judicial branch, of the U.S. government. And Trump is clear about his desire to lock up and then deport millions of people.
His administration fired close to 100 immigration judges in 2025 alone, many of whom had done legal defense work for immigrants before they joined the government, according to NPR. The administration also launched a hiring campaign seeking "deportation judges."
"There's a lot of new judges that were hired on under this administration, and they answered an ad that basically said, 'Come be a deportation judge,'" Trager said.
People can appeal an immigration judge's bond denial, but Trager said their chances of winning are "virtually nil."
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