Thi Hai Le entered the United States without inspection in late 2024, crossing the border from Mexico. She was released on December 10, 2024, on a one-year parole contingent on enrollment and participation in an Alternatives to Detention program, and was arrested on December 30, 2025, when she appeared at the Memphis ICE office for a scheduled check-in. She has been held at the West Tennessee Detention Facility in Mason, Tennessee, with no bond hearing. There is no indication in the record that she has any criminal history.
The case turns on a policy shift ICE and DOJ announced on July 8, 2025, which reinterpreted § 1225(b)(2)(A) to treat all undocumented immigrants — including those who have lived in the United States for years — as "applicants for admission" subject to mandatory detention without bond. The Board of Immigration Appeals adopted that interpretation in Yajure Hurtado, 29 I. & N. Dec. 216 (B.I.A. 2025). Before that guidance, most noncitizens in Le's situation received bond hearings under § 1226(a), which allows immigration authorities to release a detained alien on bond of at least $1,500 pending a removal decision.
Chief U.S. District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman, writing for the Western District of Tennessee, held that the plain text of both statutes forecloses the government's reading. The title and subject matter of § 1225 address inspection and expedited removal of aliens arriving at the border, and Le was neither arriving nor eligible for expedited removal when she was detained more than a year after entry. Applying § 1225(b)(2)(A) to her would also render the phrase "seeking admission" superfluous — the record showed no immigration officer had determined she was not clearly entitled to be admitted — and would make § 1226(c)'s mandatory-detention carve-out for immigrants with certain criminal records entirely pointless, since under the government's theory all undocumented immigrants are already subject to mandatory detention.
Judge Lipman also pointed to Congress's 2025 passage of the Laken Riley Act, which added a new subsection to § 1226(c) to bar bond for immigrants with certain criminal histories. She reasoned that Congress would not have added that exception to § 1226(c) if § 1225(b)(2)(A) already mandated detention of every undocumented immigrant regardless of how long they had been present — rendering § 1226(c) entirely pointless.
On due process, the court applied the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test and held that Le's detention without a bond hearing violated the Fifth Amendment: her liberty interest is strong, the risk of erroneous deprivation without an immigration judge evaluating flight risk and community danger is high, and — given her clean criminal record — the government will face difficulty demonstrating an interest in her continued detention.
The court ordered Le's immediate release, enjoined the government from pursuing her detention under § 1225(b)(2)(A), and directed the government to file a compliance status report by April 22, 2026.