Supreme Court Ruling Means Immigrants Could Continue To Be Detained Indefinitely

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/27/58909...ntent=20180227

Updated at 11:28 a.m. ET

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that immigrants, even those with permanent legal status and asylum seekers, do not have the right to periodic bond hearings.

It's a profound loss for those immigrants appealing what are sometimes indefinite detentions by the government. Many are held for long periods of time — on average, 13 months — after being picked up for things as minor as joyriding. Some are held even longer.

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The case, Jennings v. Rodriguez, has implications for legal permanent residents the government wants to deport, because they committed crimes and asylum seekers who are awaiting a court date after turning themselves in at the border. Immigrant advocates contend that many of these immigrants have a right to be free on bail until their case is heard.

But the court wrote in its 5-3 opinion Tuesday, "Immigration officials are authorized to detain certain aliens in the course of immigration proceedings while they determine whether those aliens may be lawfully present in the country."

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No one can claim, nor since the time of slavery has anyone to my knowledge successfully claimed, that persons held within the United States are totally without constitutional protection."
Justice Stephen Breyer, reading from his dissent in the case Jennings v. Rodriguez
The majority opinion was penned by Justice Alito and joined by the court's conservatives. (Justice Kagan did not participate. She recused herself, stemming from work she had done as President Obama's solicitor general.)

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The decision reversed a Ninth Circuit ruling and the court remanded it for the Ninth to reconsider the case. So this is not the last word and could come back to the high court.

Justice Breyer read from his dissent, a rare move for the court that indicates just how passionately he disagrees with the majority opinion.

"We need only recall the words of the Declaration of Independence," Breyer said, "in particular its insistence that all men and women have 'certain unalienable Rights,' and that among them is the right to 'Liberty.'"

He continued, calling the ruling "legal fiction."

"Whatever the fiction, would the Constitution leave the Government free to starve, beat, or lash those held within our boundaries?" Breyer argued. "If not, then, whatever the fiction, how can the Constitution authorize the Government to imprison arbitrarily those who, whatever we might pretend, are in reality right here in the United States?"

Breyer added, "No one can claim, nor since the time of slavery has anyone to my knowledge successfully claimed, that persons held within the United States are totally without constitutional protection."

The lead plaintiff in the case is a legal permanent resident, Alejandro Rodriguez, who came to the U.S. as a child and worked as a dental assistant. As a teenager, he was convicted for joyriding, and at 24, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance.

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Rodriguez was detained for three years without the right to appear before a judge to ask for bond.

The American Civil Liberties Union took up Rodriguez' case. The civil-rights group filed a class action lawsuit and eventually won his release and the cancellation of his deportation order. Rodriguez remains in the United States.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the immigrant detainees and asylum seekers can't be detained indefinitely and that they have a right to a bond hearing every six months. The appellate court also held that, in order to hold these detainees, the government must show the immigrants would pose a danger or become a flight risk if set free.

The Obama administration appealed to the high court, insisting that Congress — not the courts — has the power to make immigration law and that the law allows the government to detain "criminal and terrorist aliens" as well as "aliens seeking admission to the United States."

The Trump administration continued the case.

The administration also argued that detained immigrants should not be recognized as a class that could bring legal action. Lawyers for the Justice Department said detainees should rely on individual habeus corpus petitions to challenge their detentions.

The ACLU countered that few detainees have access to legal counsel and that a backlog of such habeus corpus petitions almost guarantees delays in winning release.

Don't commit a crime.

This is about people who are held indefinitely before even being convicted of a crime.

This ruling means ICE can pick you off the streets and hold you indefinitely without you ever being in front of a court.

Think about what this means in terms of us being able to protest publicly.

and because they believe you might have done something (not proven), so they can bring you in, and keep you, even if you are innocent. Say an agent doesn't like you and say, 'I think you did this or did that' and you say no, but he doens't believe you, then he can detain you, and put you in jail and hold you for over a year and longer

Yes but also if you commit a crime youre screwed.

What does committing a crime have to do with this case?

They will be continued to be detained indefinitely. Read the title.

The case is about whether ICE can detain any immigrant indefinitely before the immigrant is ever in front of a court.

They can detain you before you are ever convicted of a crime.

You're an immigrant and you look hispanic? We will hold you for 2 years. Good luck holding on to a job and supporting your family.

I never said commit a crime and be convicted of a crime.

Please show me where I said get convicted of a crime?

This isn't what happened. The Court struck down the justification that the 9th Circuit had used to require bond hearings — and told the 9th Circuit to go back and make a _new ruling_ about whether prolonged detention violates immigrants' rights. @dlind