A federal appeals court ruled Friday that illegal immigrants detained inside the United States have no constitutional right to a bond hearing, no matter how long they have lived in the country.

A bond hearing allows detained migrants to ask an immigration judge for release on bond while their immigration cases proceed.

In a 10-7 decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed a lower panel and sided with the Trump administration. The ruling closed the main legal route that judges in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi had used to free detained migrants who challenged how long they were being held.

The ruling backs a policy, put in place last year, that lets the government hold immigrants arrested in the interior until their deportation cases end, without giving them a chance to argue for release before a judge. It is a sharp break from how previous administrations handled such cases, when migrants who were not flight risks or dangers could often post bond.

Writing for the majority, Judge Cory Wilson, a Trump appointee, said the men challenging their detention were still legally seeking admission to the country and were not entitled to a hearing on due-process grounds. The judge wrote that they could end their confinement “at any moment by agreeing to leave the country.”

The three men at the center of the case came from Mexico and Honduras, have U.S.-citizen children, and were picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after traffic stops. One of them had lived in the United States for more than 22 years.

In a concurring opinion, Judge James Ho said the court was defending basic national authority. “A nation ceases to be a nation if it can’t protect its borders,” he wrote, adding that the dissenting judges would hand illegal immigrants an incentive to settle in the country unlawfully.

The dissenters argued that the decision cut long-term residents off from constitutional protections the Supreme Court has long recognized.

James Percival, the top lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security, called the decision a “big win” on social media.

The ruling comes weeks after the Supreme Court agreed to take up a related case on the same detention policy. The justices, however, are weighing only whether federal immigration law requires bond hearings, not whether the Constitution does — the question the Fifth Circuit answered Friday.