Supreme Court rules illegal immigrants who re-entered the US after being deported are NOT entitled to bond hearings and can be detained indefinitely
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the government can indefinitely detain certain immigrants who say they will face persecution or torture if they are deported to their native countries.
Over the dissent of three liberal justices, the court held 6-3 that the immigrants are not entitled to a hearing about whether they should be released while the government evaluates their claims.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court that 'those aliens are not entitled to a bond hearing.'
'he finality of the order of removal does not depend in any way on the outcome of the withholding-only proceedings,' he wrote in the opinion overturning the Fourth Circuit of Appeals.
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the government can indefinitely detain certain immigrants who say they will face persecution or torture if they are deported to their native countries. Migrants are seen crossing the Rio Grande near Del Rio, Texas, on June 15
The case involves people who had been previously deported and, when detained after re-entering the United States illegally, claimed that they would be persecuted or tortured if sent back.
'Although the statute does not specify a time limit on how long DHS may detain an alien in the post-removal period, this Court has "read an implicit limitation" into the statute "in light of the Constitution’s demands," and has held that an alien may be detained only for ‘a period reasonably necessary to bring about that alien’s removal from the United States"'.
He wrote that it would be reasonable for these immigrants to seek release after six months of being detained.
One man is a citizen of El Salvador who said he was immediately threatened by a gang after being deported from the U.S.
An immigration officer determined that the immigrants had a 'reasonable fear' for their safety if returned to their countries, setting in motion an evaluation process that can take months or years.
Over the dissent of three liberal justices, the court held 6-3 that the immigrants are not entitled to a hearing about whether they should be released while the government evaluates their claims
The issue for the court was whether the government could hold the immigrants without having an immigration judge weigh in.
The immigrants and the Trump administration, which briefed and argued the case before President Joe Biden's inauguration in January, pointed to different provisions of immigration law to make their respective cases.
Alito, in his opinion for the court, wrote that the administration's argument that the relevant provision does not provide for a bond hearing was more persuasive.
In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer saw it differently.
'But why would Congress want to deny a bond hearing to individuals who reasonably fear persecution or torture, and who, as a result, face proceedings that may last for many months or years...? I can find no satisfactory answer to this question,' Breyer wrote.
The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, had ruled in the immigrants' favor, but other appellate courts had sided with the government. Tuesday's decision sets a nationwide rule, but one that affects what lawyers for the immigrants called a relatively small subset of noncitizens.
Migrant families wade through the waters of the Rio Grande to get to the US on June 16
Migrants who entered the United States illegally and turned themselves sit on a bus after they were processed by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol earlier this month