The U.S. Supreme Court said Thursday it will decide whether the Trump administration’s policy of detaining immigrants indefinitely without bond hearings while they await immigration court proceedings is legal under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The case will be placed on the justices’ docket for the court’s next term, with oral arguments expected in early 2027 and a decision likely by summer.

The administration argues it can detain people without bond if they are in the country unlawfully, no matter how long they have lived here. In narrowing the question it will resolve, the justices limited the scope of the case — they will rule only on whether the policy is lawful under the 1996 statute, not on whether it violates the constitutional due process rights of those held. The statutory question turns on whether the 1996 law authorizes detention without bond for immigrants apprehended well inside the United States, or whether, as immigrants have argued, it applies only to people detained shortly after they entered near the border.

Until this administration, immigration detainees could petition a judge for release. Under the Trump administration, that avenue has not been available, and detention rates have soared. About 65,000 people are now held in immigration detention facilities in the United States, according to figures cited in the case. Advocates named in the litigation said about 70% of those detained have no criminal convictions, and many are legal immigrants awaiting the resolution of petitions stalled in government backlogs.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, writing for the administration, urged the court to take up what he called a “critically important question of immigration law.” Sauer argued that the policy removes a “perverse incentive” under which people who evade detention when they enter the country are treated more leniently than those detained at the border. The litigation, he wrote, is “disrupting the orderly administration of immigration law.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is challenging the administration’s position, called the policy a “radical reinterpretation” of immigration law in its own court documents. The group pointed out that some of the migrants held under the policy entered the United States as young children.

The majority of appellate panels that have considered the question have sided with immigrants, agreeing with their argument that the federal statute the administration relies on for detention without bond applies only to people detained near the border. Where lower courts have divided, with the majority ruling for immigrants, the justices will now resolve the question at the top of the federal judiciary. The ruling will determine the legality of the detention policy affecting the roughly 65,000 people currently in detention.