But while the Constitution protects people in criminal cases from excessive bail and Arizona law guarantees bond hearings for people accused of crimes, those protections do not apply to immigration bond cases. This means, before trial, an accused robber or drug dealer has more rights than an immigrant with long-standing ties to the United States and no criminal background, according to Orozco.
“A person could have been here for 20 years, gotten a $40,000 bond, but there’s no constitutional protection against that,” Orozco said.
During the week of February 9, Howard Center reporters visited the Eloy and Florence immigration courts to observe bond hearings. At least 11 of the 28 bond hearings observed, or nearly 40%, ended in denial. Of the observed cases that resulted in bond being granted, the required payments ranged from $5,000 in Florence to $12,000 in Eloy. Federal data showed two instances, in 2025 and 2026, in which a judge in Eloy and a judge in Florence granted bonds that required the immigrant detainees to come up with $50,000, more than 30 times the amount judges are required to set.
“Immigration judges have a huge amount of discretion, especially in bond proceedings, to set bond amounts,” said Anita Gupta, a senior advisor for immigration programs for the advocacy group UnidosUS. “What we’ve seen is an increase in bond amounts over a period of time, even though the fact patterns aren’t changing.”
Judges generally want to set a bond amount that is sufficient for an immigrant to show up to court hearings “without being unreasonable or punitive,” according to Matthew O’Brien, a former assistant chief immigration judge and former ICE assistant chief counsel.
“If an Immigration Judge sets a bond so low that an alien is willing to sacrifice his or her cash, rather than appear in court, the purpose of the bond is defeated,” O’Brien said in a written statement.