WASHINGTON (TNND) — Immigrants who enter the United States illegally will no longer be eligible for a bond hearing while fighting deportation, meaning they could be held for months or years, according to a memo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The memo, released by acting director Todd Lyons on July 8, informs agents that immigrants should be detained "for the duration of their removal proceedings," The Washington Post reported after reviewing the document.

Lyons added that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had “revisited its legal position on detention and release authorities” and determined that such immigrants “may not be released from ICE custody." On a rare occasion, immigrants may be released on parole, but that would be up to an immigration officer and not a judge, he said.

ICE expects to face legal challenges to the move, according to Lyons.

The policy change comes days after President Donald Trump signed his "One Big Beautiful Bill Act", which significantly increases ICE's detention capacity to around 100,000 and hands the department $45 billion over the next four years to detain immigrants.

"The bill’s $145 billion expenditure on border security and interior enforcement, combined with application fees and benefit limitations, fundamentally alter American immigration policy to a degree not seen since the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA)," the National Immigration Forum said while highlighting the key immigration provisions.

In an effort to increase space for detained migrants, Alligator Alcatraz was opened in Florida's Everglades at the beginning of July with enough room for roughly 5,000 people. A 10,000-foot runway on site allows for direct air transport of detainees out of the United States.

Immigrants were being denied bond hearings in more than a dozen courts across the U.S. since the memo was issued last week, the American Immigration Lawyers Association told The Washington Post.

“This is their way of putting in place nationwide a method of detaining even more people,” Greg Chen, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said. “It’s requiring the detention of far more people without any real review of their individual circumstances.”

Border Czar Tom Homan said before Trump's bill passed that ICE's approach is to release no one and increase special military zones on the southern border.

"If you come to the borders illegally, you don't have proper documentation to enter legally, the law says you shall be detained," Homan said. "Not maybe, not thinking about it, not released to an NGO. You shall be detained. And that's exactly what we're doing. We're detaining and removing. We're not releasing people. Matter of fact, last month we had zero releases and the same month last year they released 64,000 into the country. We released zero."

ICE is currently holding around 56,000 immigrants a day in detention facilities across the country.