The First Circuit has affirmed a district court order requiring bond hearings for a certified class of noncitizens detained in Massachusetts after entering the United States without inspection, holding that such individuals are governed by the discretionary detention authority in 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) rather than the mandatory, bondless detention provision in § 1225(b)(2)(A).
The Court held that "seeking admission" in § 1225(b)(2)(A) means seeking lawful entry, and that a noncitizen who has already entered the country unlawfully years earlier is not seeking such entry, regardless of being deemed an "applicant for admission" under the statute's separate deeming provision. Joining six other circuits and deepening a split with the Fifth and Eighth Circuits, the Court rejected the government's argument that the deeming provision extends to "seeking admission" as well, and found further support in the statutory redundancies the government's reading would create with § 1226(c)'s recently expanded mandatory-detention provisions.
The full text of Guerrero Orellana v. Moniz can be found here: https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/files/opnfiles/25-2152P-01A.pdf