WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday curbed the ability of immigrants held in long-term detention during deportation proceedings to argue for their release in a ruling in sync with President Donald Trump’s get-tough approach toward immigration.

The court’s conservative justices carried the day in the 5-3 decision that overturned a lower court’s ruling that required that immigrants held by the U.S. government who are awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings get a bond hearing after six months of detention to seek their release.

The ruling could lead to indefinite detentions of certain classes of immigrants, including some with legal status who the government wants to deport.

The court’s five conservatives were in the majority in the ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito, and three liberals dissented, including Justice Stephen Breyer, who sharply criticized the decision. Another liberal, Justice Elena Kagan, did not participate in the ruling.

Class action litigation brought by the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the government’s practice of placing immigrants facing deportation proceedings in detention for months or years without a chance to argue for release.

Breyer said that forbidding bail would likely violate the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of due process under the law. Breyer said he doubted the U.S. Congress, in crafting the immigration provisions at issue in the case, would have wanted to put thousands of people at risk of lengthy confinement in the United States without any hope of bail.

“We need only recall the words of the Declaration of Independence, in particular its insistence that all men and women have ‘certain unalienable Rights,’ and that among them is the right to ‘Liberty,’” Breyer wrote.

But Alito said that the immigration law provisions in question cannot be interpreted to limit the length of detention. He called Breyer’s view of the statutes “utterly implausible.”

The case assumed added importance in light of the Trump administration’s decision to ramp up immigration enforcement, with growing numbers of people likely to end up in detention awaiting deportation.

The court threw out a 2015 decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the government must provide bond hearings to gauge danger and flight risk when detention exceeds six months, and every six months after that. Former President Barack Obama’s Justice Department had challenged that ruling and the Trump administration took up the appeal.

The justices sent the case back to the 9th Circuit to consider the question of whether the Constitution requires bond hearings for detained immigrants.

The ACLU said it looks forward to arguing the constitutional questions in lower courts. “The Trump administration is trying to expand immigration detention to record-breaking levels as part of its crackdown on immigrant communities,” ACLU attorney Ahilan Arulanantham said.

There are roughly 36,000 immigrants held in detention in the United States on any given day, and the ACLU estimates that about 10 to 20 percent have been detained at least six months.

Those suing included immigrants who were held at the border when seeking illegal entry as well as others, including lawful permanent residents who hold so-called green cards, who have been convicted of crimes.