New Delhi, July 16 -- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has moved to detain far more people than before by tapping a legal authority to jail anyone who entered the country illegally without allowing them a bond hearing.

Todd Lyons, ICE's acting director, wrote employees on July 8 that the agency was revisiting its "extraordinarily broad and equally complex" authority to detain people and that, effective immediately, people would be ineligible for a bond hearing before an immigration judge. Instead, they cannot be released unless the Homeland Security Department makes an exception.

The directive, first reported by The Washington Post, signals wider use of a 1996 law to detain people who had previously been allowed to remain free w...