Interior “Applicants for Admission” Are Not Necessarily “Seeking Admission”: § 1225(b)(2)(A) Mandatory Detention Excludes Long-Resident, Unadmitted Noncitizens Arrested in the Interior

1. Introduction

Case: Jesus Jose Pizarro Reyes v. Kevin Raycraft (consolidated with related habeas cases)
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Date: May 11, 2026
Panel: Clay, Cole, and Murphy, Circuit Judges (Clay, J., for the court; Murphy, J., dissenting)

This consolidated appeal arose from multiple district-court grants of habeas corpus to noncitizens who had lived in the United States for years without lawful status and were arrested in the interior by ICE or CBP. The government detained them without bond under the “mandatory detention” provision for certain “applicant[s] for admission,” 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A), relying heavily on the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision Matter of Yajure Hurtado, 29 I. & N. Dec. 216 (BIA 2025), which had adopted an expanded understanding of § 1225(b)(2)(A).

The central issues were:

  • Statutory: Whether noncitizens arrested in the interior who never affirmatively attempted lawful entry are covered by § 1225(b)(2)(A) (mandatory detention) or § 1226 (generally permitting bond, subject to exceptions).
  • Constitutional: Whether continued detention without an individualized bond hearing violates the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause (as applied by most of the district courts).

The district courts held that § 1226(a) governed detention and ordered bond hearings (or release). The Sixth Circuit affirmed.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Sixth Circuit held that § 1225(b)(2)(A) does not apply to interior, long-resident, unadmitted noncitizens who did not take affirmative steps to obtain lawful entry at the time relevant to the statute. Although such persons are “applicant[s] for admission” by virtue of 8 U.S.C. § 1225(a)(1), the court ruled that § 1225(b)(2)(A) additionally requires that the person be “seeking admission”—a phrase the court read to require an affirmative attempt to obtain lawful entry through inspection and authorization.

As a result, detention fell under § 1226 (the “default rule” described in Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U.S. 281 (2018)), and the district courts did not err in concluding that the government’s reliance on § 1225(b)(2)(A) was unlawful.

On due process, the Sixth Circuit agreed with the district courts (except for the district court in Pizarro Reyes’s case, which had not reached the constitutional issue) that Petitioners—who had lived in the United States for years—were entitled to Fifth Amendment protections, and that detention under § 1226(a) without an individualized bond hearing violated due process under the circumstances presented.

3. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1) The statutory-detention framework and “default rule”: Jennings v. Rodriguez

Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U.S. 281 (2018), supplied the architecture for the court’s statutory analysis. The Sixth Circuit quoted Jennings for the proposition that immigration law authorizes detention of those “seeking admission” under §§ 1225(b)(1) and (b)(2), and detention of those “already in the country” under §§ 1226(a) and (c). The majority used Jennings to frame § 1226 as the “default rule” for interior detention pending removal when § 1225 does not apply.

2) Statutory interpretation method and canons: Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., United States v. Ron Pair Enters., Inc., and related Sixth Circuit authority

The court relied on classic interpretive directives from Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337 (1997), and United States v. Ron Pair Enters., Inc., 489 U.S. 235 (1989), emphasizing text, context, and coherence; if unambiguous, the inquiry ends. It cited United States ex rel. Felten v. William Beaumont Hosp., 993 F.3d 428 (6th Cir. 2021), for this methodology and deployed several canons:

  • Different-words presumption: Bruce v. Adams & Reese, LLP, 168 F.4th 367 (6th Cir. 2026), and Tomaszcuk v. Whitaker, 909 F.3d 159 (6th Cir. 2018), supported the inference that “seeking admission” was intentionally different from “applicant for admission.”
  • Anti-surplusage: Nielsen v. Preap, 586 U.S. 392 (2019), and Marx v. Gen. Revenue Corp., 568 U.S. 371 (2013), grounded the conclusion that giving “seeking admission” no independent meaning would render it superfluous.
  • Avoidance of absurd results: Nixon v. Mo. Mun. League, 541 U.S. 125 (2004), was invoked to reject the dissent’s attempt to preserve surplusage by tying “seeking admission” to the withdrawal mechanism in § 1225(a)(4); the majority viewed the resulting bond-eligibility outcomes as irrational.

3) Ordinary meaning and verb tense: Luna Perez v. Sturgis Pub. Schs. and United States v. Stewart

The court’s central move was textual: it treated “seeking” as a present participle requiring active pursuit. It drew on dictionary usage and the idea that verb tense matters (citing United States v. Stewart, 73 F.4th 423 (6th Cir. 2023), and analogizing to the interpretive significance of tense). It also cited Luna Perez v. Sturgis Pub. Schs., 598 U.S. 142 (2023), for the ordinary meaning of “seek” (“ask for”/“request”).

4) Government practice after deference recalibration: Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo and NLRB v. Noel Canning

The majority treated the government’s “previously unbroken 29-year streak” of applying § 1226(a) to interior, unlawfully present noncitizens as probative, citing Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024), and NLRB v. Noel Canning, 573 U.S. 513 (2014), for the limited but real relevance of longstanding executive practice even when courts exercise “independent judgment.” The court also referenced the 1997 interim rule (62 Fed. Reg. 10,312) as evidence of prior executive understanding.

5) Due process baseline for noncitizens “within the interior”: Yamataya v. Fisher, Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, Zadvydas v. Davis, and related cases

The court grounded interior noncitizens’ entitlement to due process in a century of precedent:

  • Yamataya v. Fisher, 189 U.S. 86 (1903), for the proposition that noncitizens who have entered and are within U.S. jurisdiction may not be denied “notice” and “an opportunity to be heard.”
  • Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206 (1953), for the distinction between those “on the threshold of initial entry” and those who have “passed through our gates,” with the latter receiving due process protections.
  • Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001), and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004), for the principle that freedom from physical restraint lies at the heart of the liberty protected by due process.
  • Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292 (1993), and Demore v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510 (2003), recognizing due process protections in removal contexts while also acknowledging detention can be permissible.

6) Limiting the government’s reliance on border-case precedent: Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam

The government argued that Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, 591 U.S. 103 (2020), implies noncitizens receive only statutorily specified process. The majority confined Thuraissigiam to its context—an individual apprehended essentially at the border (25 yards)—and held it did not control for long-resident interior detainees.

7) Due process in the bond-hearing context: First, Second, and Third Circuit authorities

For the proposition that prolonged or unjustified civil immigration detention can require individualized process, the majority cited:

  • Hernandez-Lara v. Lyons, 10 F.4th 19 (1st Cir. 2021)
  • Velasco Lopez v. Decker, 978 F.3d 842 (2d Cir. 2020)
  • German Santos v. Warden Pike Cnty. Corr. Facility, 965 F.3d 203 (3d Cir. 2020)

8) The circuit split acknowledged by the court

The Sixth Circuit expressly aligned itself with the Second and Eleventh Circuits and “Judge Lee’s individual opinion” in Castañon-Nava v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec., --- F.4th ---, 2026 WL 1223250 (7th Cir. 2026), while acknowledging contrary approaches in Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, 166 F.4th 494 (5th Cir. 2026), and Avila v. Bondi, 170 F.4th 1128 (8th Cir. 2026).

B. Legal Reasoning

1) The court’s core textual holding: “applicant for admission” ≠ “seeking admission”

The decisive statutory interpretation was the court’s insistence on giving independent meaning to “seeking admission” in § 1225(b)(2)(A). The INA deems certain noncitizens “applicant[s] for admission” (including those “present in the United States who ha[ve] not been admitted”), but § 1225(b)(2)(A) applies only when an officer determines “that an alien seeking admission” is not clearly entitled to admission. The majority treated that phrasing as narrowing—requiring an active attempt at lawful entry.

2) Dictionary and grammar: “seeking” requires an affirmative, present pursuit

The opinion leaned heavily on ordinary meaning. Across multiple dictionaries, “seek” connotes actively trying to obtain or request something. Coupled with the statutory definition of “admission” as “lawful entry ... after inspection and authorization,” the court reasoned that “seeking admission” describes people trying to obtain lawful entry through inspection—not people who have long avoided inspection and are arrested later in the interior.

3) Structural and practical coherence: why Congress likely did not mandate interior mass detention

The court reinforced its text-based reading with structural considerations, notably Congress’s awareness of detention-capacity burdens when it enacted IIRIRA. It contrasted the “escape hatch” Congress created for implementing § 1226(c) with the absence of any similar mechanism for § 1225(b)(2)(A). Given Congress’s estimates of millions of unlawfully present persons, the court found it implausible that Congress silently required mandatory detention of that entire population pending proceedings.

4) Rejection of the government’s “otherwise” argument in § 1225(a)(3)

The government argued that § 1225(a)(3) (“applicants for admission or otherwise seeking admission”) shows “applicant” status necessarily implies “seeking admission.” The majority rejected this, reading “otherwise” as introducing distinct categories (including those seeking readmission or transit) rather than collapsing “applicants for admission” into “seeking admission.”

5) The due process holding: interior detainees have a liberty interest in freedom from detention

On due process, the court emphasized that Petitioners were not asserting a constitutional right to remain in the United States, but rather the fundamental liberty interest in freedom from physical restraint. Given their long residence and the nature of § 1226(a) as a scheme that ordinarily contemplates individualized assessments, the court found no error in the district courts’ conclusions that Petitioners were due individualized bond hearings.

6) The dissent’s competing theory

Judge Murphy’s dissent construed § 1225(a)(1)’s “shall be deemed ... an applicant for admission” language as requiring courts to treat such persons as “seeking admission” across the INA, relying on ordinary meanings of “applicant/apply” and the goal of eliminating incentives to evade border inspection. The dissent would have reversed the habeas grants, upheld mandatory detention under § 1225(b)(2)(A), and rejected the due process claim as foreclosed (or at least not supported) by Supreme Court precedent.

C. Impact

1) Immediate doctrinal effect in the Sixth Circuit

The decision creates binding Sixth Circuit precedent that:

  • § 1225(b)(2)(A) does not automatically apply to interior, unlawfully present noncitizens merely because they are “applicant[s] for admission” under § 1225(a)(1).
  • “Seeking admission” in § 1225(b)(2)(A) requires an affirmative, contemporaneous pursuit of lawful entry via inspection and authorization.
  • For many interior arrests of long-resident, unadmitted noncitizens, detention must proceed under § 1226 (with whatever bond/parole mechanisms that statute and its amendments allow), not § 1225(b)(2)(A).

2) Institutional and administrative consequences

The ruling directly undermines reliance on Matter of Yajure Hurtado, 29 I. & N. Dec. 216 (BIA 2025), within the Sixth Circuit to justify no-bond detention of interior arrestees under § 1225(b)(2)(A). Practically, immigration judges in Sixth Circuit jurisdictions should have clearer jurisdiction to conduct bond proceedings (subject to statutory mandatory-detention carveouts).

3) Contribution to an entrenched circuit split

By aligning with the Second and Eleventh Circuits and rejecting Fifth and Eighth Circuit approaches, the decision intensifies a multi-circuit split over the meaning of “seeking admission” in § 1225(b)(2)(A) as applied to interior, unlawfully present noncitizens. This is the kind of interpretive conflict that frequently prompts Supreme Court review, especially because it affects detention authority and liberty interests nationwide.

4) Interaction with the Laken Riley Act amendments

The court discussed the Laken Riley Act’s expansion of § 1226(c) (mandatory detention for certain inadmissible noncitizens and those charged with specified offenses). While the opinion did not resolve every downstream question about these new categories, it clarifies that the government cannot bypass § 1226’s framework (including its mandatory-detention subparts and procedures) by defaulting to § 1225(b)(2)(A) for interior arrestees who are not “seeking admission.”

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • “Applicant for admission” (8 U.S.C. § 1225(a)(1)): A legal status label the INA assigns to certain noncitizens, including those physically present in the U.S. who were never lawfully admitted. It is broader than ordinary English usage.
  • “Seeking admission” (8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A)): In this decision, a narrower concept requiring an affirmative, present attempt to obtain lawful entry through inspection and authorization—not merely being “deemed” an applicant while residing in the interior.
  • Mandatory vs. discretionary detention: Under § 1225(b)(2)(A), qualifying noncitizens “shall be detained” (generally no bond). Under § 1226(a), detention is permitted but may allow release on bond/conditions (subject to § 1226(c)’s mandatory categories and recent amendments).
  • Bond hearing: A proceeding (typically before an immigration judge) to decide whether a detainee should be released while removal proceedings continue, usually based on flight risk and danger.
  • Anti-surplusage canon: Courts try to interpret statutes so that no words are meaningless. Here, it supported treating “seeking admission” as doing work beyond “applicant for admission.”
  • Habeas corpus (28 U.S.C. § 2241): A mechanism to challenge unlawful detention. Petitioners used habeas to contest the statutory basis and constitutional validity of their no-bond detention.

5. Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit’s opinion establishes a significant detention rule: being an “applicant for admission” by operation of § 1225(a)(1) does not, by itself, make an interior arrestee an “alien seeking admission” subject to § 1225(b)(2)(A)’s mandatory detention. The court reads “seeking admission” to require an affirmative, contemporaneous pursuit of lawful entry—thereby steering many long-resident, unlawfully present interior detainees into § 1226’s detention framework instead.

On the constitutional dimension, the court reaffirmed that interior noncitizens possess Fifth Amendment due process protections with respect to physical liberty, and it sustained the district courts’ determinations that § 1226(a) detention without an individualized bond hearing violated due process on the facts presented.

With a pronounced circuit split and high stakes for detention authority, the decision is poised to shape litigation strategies, constrain agency reliance on Matter of Yajure Hurtado in the Sixth Circuit, and increase the likelihood of eventual Supreme Court resolution.