Trump Administration Loses Twice at Appeals Courts in One Day: ICE Detention Policy and Mail Ballot Rules Both Rejected

Since the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became, on Thursday, the sixth appellate court in recent months to side against the Trump administration's detention rules, nine circuits have rejected the policy and two have upheld it. On the same day, a separate appeals court in Boston delivered the administration a second defeat, this time over mail-in voting rules it wants in place before November 3.

ICE Detention Policy Rejected, Compared to Internment

In a 2-1 ruling, the 4th Circuit found ICE's mandatory detention policy illegal. Judge Nicole Berner, a Biden appointee, wrote the majority opinion joined by Judge Barbara Keenan, an Obama appointee. Judge Allison Jones Rushing dissented, according to Ground News.

"Mass detention of marginalized individuals without due process harkens back to some of the darkest moments in our country's history," Berner wrote, adding that the internment of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II involved detentions "limited in scope in comparison to the mandatory detention that the Government urges us today to find that Congress established thirty years ago in an ambiguously worded statutory provision. We decline to do so."

The policy dates to July 2025, when ICE issued guidance reclassifying longtime undocumented residents as "applicants for admission" subject to mandatory detention without bond, according to Ground News. That broke with practice under every prior administration, including Trump's first term, which reserved mandatory detention for people recently arrested at or near the border, according to MyNorthwest and the Associated Press.

Politico reported that more than 460 federal judges have rejected the administration's approach, versus just over 50 who sided with it, with rejections cutting across judicial appointees of both parties. The Fifth and Eighth Circuits have upheld the policy, according to Ground News, creating the split that makes Supreme Court review all but certain.

A DHS spokesperson told Fox News and WFMD the agency remains "confident in its legal position," arguing that opinions from the Board of Immigration Appeals and two other circuits "reflect the soundness of DHS's legal position" and calling it "the nail in the coffin for Biden's catch and release policies." DHS Chief Counsel James Percival separately told Fox News that a subset of district judges are in "open defiance" of Supreme Court rulings on immigration, calling it "naked political activism" — though Percival specified he was referring to a group of judges, not the judiciary broadly.

My Khanh Ngo, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, called the ruling a rejection of "the administration's cruel policy and its blatant disrespect for the rule of law."

DHS has already asked the Supreme Court to review a similar ruling out of the 6th Circuit, meaning the justices may end up resolving the detention question and the mail-ballot fight in the same term.

Mail Ballot Rules Blocked Again

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, with judges Seth Aframe, Gustavo Gelpí Jr. and Julie Rikelman all agreeing, declined Thursday to lift a block on new U.S. Postal Service mail-ballot rules tied to a Trump executive order signed this spring, according to The Hill and Al Jazeera.

The finalized rules, released in late August, require states to redesign mail ballots with trackable barcodes and submit lists of voters eligible to receive them; USPS could refuse to transmit ballots for voters not on those lists, per Al Jazeera. The Department of Justice argues the rules are "modest" design standards that leave states in charge of voter eligibility, not a federal takeover of election administration.

The administration's central argument is that states still decide who votes and USPS just standardizes and verifies the mailing process. Whether that framing holds up is precisely what's in dispute. The plaintiffs, including the League of Women Voters, argue the rules functionally disenfranchise mail voters regardless of who signs off on eligibility.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, has now blocked the rule three times. The Supreme Court overturned her first block on August 24, ruling she lacked authority to rule on that particular suit before USPS implementation. She reissued a block days later, then a third time last Friday, prompting Solicitor General D. John Sauer to file an updated 40-page emergency application with the Supreme Court on Sunday, arguing the administration is likely to prevail on the merits.

The 1st Circuit's Thursday order, described by The Hill as nine pages, found "no obvious error" in Talwani's conclusion that letting the rule take effect before November 3 would "likely result in the disenfranchisement of millions of voters across the country while providing minimal — if any — gains in combating voter fraud." Trump has long claimed mail voting is rife with fraud without offering supporting evidence in these proceedings, The Hill noted, and the courts so far have found no record evidence of past fraud or a credible risk of it in the coming midterms.

Both cases now sit with the Supreme Court, which is weighing the DOJ's emergency application on mail ballots while also facing a pending request to review the 6th Circuit's detention ruling. With the midterms seven weeks away, the justices' timeline on both questions will determine whether the current injunctions hold through November 3 or whether the administration's rules take effect mid-cycle.