Rodriguez Vazquez v. Bostock

Case Overview

A published Ninth Circuit immigration ruling, decided July 30, 2026, on whether people who entered the country without admission and are arrested in the interior can be held without a bond hearing. Ramon Rodriguez Vazquez brought a class action for detained noncitizens in Western Washington after the government issued July 2025 guidance reclassifying interior unadmitted noncitizens as subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. Section 1225(b)(2)(A). The district court (Judge Tiffany Cartwright, W.D. Wash.) granted summary judgment for the class, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. Writing for the panel, Judge Bress held that Section 1225(b)(2)(A) mandatory detention reaches only those seeking admission at the border, while noncitizens apprehended in the interior are detained under Section 1226(a), which allows release on bond, reading the statute against the historical understanding that persisted after the 1996 IIRIRA amendments. Judge Bea dissented. The opinion catalogs a deep circuit split: the Fifth and Eighth Circuits have sided with the government, the Second, Sixth, Tenth, and Eleventh with the detainees, and the Seventh has splintered without a majority, a lineup that makes the question a strong candidate for Supreme Court review. Panel: McKeown, Bea, and Bress.