What’s an ICE Hold?

With respect to a criminal offense, an ICE hold puts a federal detainer on an illegal alien. Once the illegal alien completes his state case through sentencing, or posts bond, immigration will then come and pick him or her up for deportation purposes.

The practical effect of an ICE hold is that the illegal alien will remain detained through completion of his criminal case. Granted, you can bond the illegal alien out, but you will surely have to post a cash bond. A cash bond is the payment of the full amount of the bond. Whereas, a surety bond allows you to only pay 10% of the bond in conjunction with a bail bondsman who provides surety for the other 90% of the bond. The reason you will likely have to pay the cash bond amount is because a bail bondsman is unlikely to insure an illegal alien. The reason being that, if he did so, the illegal alien would have his bond posted and go to immigration and be deported. The illegal alien would thus miss his court date, and the bondsman would become liable for the entire amount of the bond.

Therefore, before you consider bonding out an illegal alien, it is necessary to recognize that you will likely lose all of the bail money if the illegal alien is deported. This is because he will thus not show up for his court date, and this would cause the cash bond to be forfeited.

You may have heard that some states do not recognize ICE holds. That is true. But, not in Texas. See Tex. Gov. Code Ann. § 752.053(b)(1)-(4) (2019). Comal County, Guadalupe County, and Hays County enforce ICE holds.

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