ICE Unveils Chilling Plan to Keep Immigrants Detained for Years

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has declared undocumented immigrants ineligible for bond hearings, thus opening the door to the indefinite detention of millions of immigrants while their deportation proceedings are underway.

Previously, an immigrant facing detention who did not have a serious criminal history could request a hearing in which an immigration judge would consider various factors, such as flight risk and potential danger to the community, before deciding whether to release them on bond while their case progressed.

But now, in a stark departure from precedent, the agency will suspend bond hearings, per a July 8 memo obtained by The Washington Post.

In the memo, ICE acting Director Todd Lyons ordered the detention of undocumented immigrants “for the duration of their removal proceedings”—potentially months or years. Lyons justified the change in policy in light of Trump’s Justice and Homeland Security departments having “revisited [their] legal position on detention and release authorities” and determining that such immigrants “may not be released from ICE custody” barring rare exceptions.

Already, the American Immigration Lawyers Association informed the Post of denied bond hearings in over a dozen DOJ-run immigration courts in states such as New York, Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina, Ohio, and Georgia.

The new policy is based on a peculiar interpretation of a law stating unauthorized immigrants “shall be detained” after their arrests, which has, per the Post, historically been applied only to immigrants who’d recently crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, rather than—as it now will—to those who have lived and worked in the country for decades, many of whom have children who are U.S. citizens and may have strong legal cases against deportation.

As such, Lyons acknowledged in the memo that he fully expects the policy to face legal challenges, writing, per Reuters, that the change is “likely to be litigated.”

If this new policy stays in effect, it will staggeringly balloon the population of immigrants detained under inhumane conditions at ICE facilities across the country.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s foray into truancy is over—but not everyone was so confident that he’d be back. 

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 Monday night to discuss Bongino, who didn’t show up to work Friday amid reports he was considering resigning over the lack of findings from the Department of Justice’s investigation into alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Apparently, Trump administration officials were so unsure of Bongino’s next move that they had texted Collins to ask whether he’d bothered to show up to work Monday. 

“Is it clear where Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino—his career—is headed tonight?” Cooper asked. 

“No, it’s not clear—even to White House officials, Anderson,” Collins said. “Who were texting each other, and texting me this morning asking, you know, whether or not they had figured out if he had shown up to work today, because it was still an open question in Washington this morning if he was going to be back at the FBI today.”

A senior Trump administration official told Axios that Bongino had “lost his mind and ran out of D.C.” after receiving “heat online” over the DOJ’s memo declaring that Epstein kept no “incriminating ‘client list.’” Bongino had spent a long weekend in Florida. 

Collins confirmed that Bongino hadn’t lost his job or quit. “But the relationship has deteriorated so much that there are officials inside the White House who have not spoken to Dan Bongino in days,” she said.  

CNN previously reported that Bongino had iced out all communications with his colleagues, and hadn’t spoken with anyone at the department since Wednesday. Axios confirmed that he’d gotten into an argument with Attorney General Pam Bondi that day. 

Collins said she’d been told that Donald Trump was “very angry” with Bongino, and with FBI Director Kash Patel “to a degree.” Patel, however, had come crawling back with a statement saying he had no intention of resigning from his post after receiving pressure from Trump to get in line. 

The consequences of Trump’s tariffs have begun to set in.

Prices are rising as normal Americans shoulder the burden of Trump’s fiscal policy of spite, and his tariffs cause basic goods to become more expensive. Annual inflation rose 2.7 percent last month, according to the Consumer Price Index data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday. That marks the highest increase in inflation since January. Core inflation, which doesn’t include food and energy prices, increased 2.9 percent.

This is something economists, and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, have been warning for months now. But Trump has trudged on, insisting that the market is robust while trying to cyberbully Powell into prematurely lowering interest rates.

“The level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated, and the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth,” Powell said back in April.

It will be interesting to see how the Trump administration attempts to spin things if and when inflation reaches even higher peaks as his tariffs kick in. The president is already telling a different story.

“Consumer Prices LOW,” he posted Tuesday on Truth Social. “Bring down the Fed Rate, NOW!!!”

As President Trump’s heart hardens against Russian President Vladimir Putin, he recently asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy whether he could strike the Russian capital if provided long-range weaponry by the United States, according to recent reports.

On Tuesday, The Financial Times reported that Trump, in a July 4 phone call, asked Zelenskiy, “Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow?” and also inquired as to whether he could hit St. Petersburg, the second-largest Russian city.

“Absolutely. We can if you give us the weapons,” Zelenskiy is said to have replied. Trump was apparently open to this, reportedly mentioning a strategy to “make them [Russians] feel the pain” to pressure Putin to negotiate a peace deal.

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius seemingly reported on the same conversation on Monday, writing that Trump had reportedly asked why Zelenskiy “didn’t hit Moscow,” and urged Ukraine to “put more pressure” on the two Russian cities in order to get Putin to the table.

Ignatius also wrote that Trump’s recently announced batch of military aid to Ukraine could include permission to use American-made long-range ATACMS missiles Ukraine currently possesses, which would allow it to strike deeper into Russia—but not so far as to reach the two cities Trump reportedly mentioned in his phone call.

President Biden in November 2024, to the chagrin of some Trump allies, had allowed Ukraine to use ATACMS, leading the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. to accuse him of trying to “get World War Three going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives.”

Ignatius reports that Trump has also considered granting Ukraine’s request for Tomahawk cruise missiles, which would be able to reach Moscow and St. Petersburg, but these remain off the delivery list for the time being.

The president has toughened his stance on Russia in recent days. On Monday, Trump threatened to slap massive tariffs on countries that trade with Russia and announced that the U.S. would send Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine.

Trump’s newly reported conversation with Zelenskiy provides the most recent—and perhaps most striking—evidence that he is beginning to sour on Putin, as he increasingly comes to grips with the notion that the Russian president might not be the good-faith actor he once took him to be.

House Republicans on Monday struck down a Democratic-led effort to release the Epstein files in their entirety. The Republican-majority House Rules committee voted 6-5 to block an amendment that would force the Department of Justice to make all files publicly accessible.

Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina was the only Republican to vote for their release.

“Whose side are you on? That’s really what this Epstein file issue has become,” Representative Ro Khanna, who introduced the amendment, told MSNBC on Monday. “It’s not just about knowing who’s being protected, the rich and the powerful, in terms of who had interaction with Jeffrey Epstein. It’s the sense that people have that the government is too beholden to certain interests, who have their thumb on the scale. And that they’re not working for ordinary people.... This is something that many Republicans believe should happen.”

This is perhaps the most intense test of allegiance that the MAGA movement has faced so far. Trump didn’t just break a major promise by closing the Epstein case; he did so with indignation, as if his supporters were crazy for still talking about it. And although many of his supporters are scapegoating Attorney General Pam Bondi rather than Trump, it doesn’t seem like this issue will just go away. After Monday’s vote, Khanna said he would try again to get the files released.

The Epstein files are especially likely to keep festering because the stars of the MAGA movement—like Steve Bannon, Elon Musk, Laura Loomer, and Marjorie Taylor Greene—are still genuinely upset by it. Whether other Republicans will move with the same compass as Representative Norman remains to be seen.