mandatory detention

Supreme Court again considers ICE’s detention powers

In a pair of cases being argued today, the U.S. Supreme Court reviews the federal government’s power to detain migrants. This pair of cases, Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez and Garland v. Aleman Gonzalez, raise similar legal issues: Can federal immigration officials detain a person indefinitely without the possibility of requesting release from an immigration judge when a person who is not a U.S. citizen has already been detained for at least 6 months and is waiting for immigration officials to decide whether they will be allowed to remain in the United States? In each case, a circuit court [...]

Supreme Court expands ICE detention power

In a split decision, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency can detain some migrants who fear for their lives if deported without giving them even the power to ask for release. The 6-3 decision, Johnson v. Guzman Chavez, No. 19-897 (U.S. June 29, 2021), expands ICE’s mandatory detention power over people who have previously been ordered removed from the United States, but who immigration officials find in the country. A dissenting opinion written by Justice Breyer would have adopted an alternative reading of key statutory language that would have [...]

The Great Writ’s Elusive Promise

By Mary Holper In two recent cases, Reid v. Donelan and Brito v. Barr, a federal court in Massachusetts limited ICE’s power to detain people. But by requiring detained immigrants to file habeas corpus petitions to get a bond hearing in immigration court, Chief Judge Saris of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts undercut the strength of her own clear-sighted analysis. Reid and Brito are both class actions challenging immigration detention. For Reid class members, they must file a habeas corpus petition arguing that their detention under a 1996 mandatory detention statute, [...]

Under Trump, ICE No Longer Recommends Release for Immigrants in Detention

Kate Evans & Robert Koulish In summer 2018, the Trump administration ratcheted up its immigration enforcement and detention practices with new family separation and forced detention, as part of its “zero tolerance” strategy aimed at deterring asylum applicants from exercising their asylum rights under the 1980 Refugee Act. Part of its effort was to manipulate the immigration risk detention tool, known as the risk classification assessment, or RCA. The risk tool was designed during the Obama administration to reduce the arbitrary detention of immigrants by tailoring it to risk. A new [...]

Abolish the ICE Prison Complex

Locking up migrants fighting to stay in the United States is permissible, the Supreme Court reiterated in February. The Court’s ruling mocks justice, but isn’t a big surprise. The federal laws under the Court’s consideration breathe life into a mean-spirited immigration law enforcement regime that holds tightly to the misguided belief that migrants pose a threat that prisons are best suited to extinguish. In Jennings v. Rodriguez, five justices overturned the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit allowing migrants detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement [...]

Supreme Court to hear another immigration imprisonment case

On the heels of its decision allowing prolonged confinement in an ICE detention center to continue, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear arguments in another case about the federal government’s practice or locking up migrants. Every day, the Department of Homeland Security detains roughly 34,000 individuals. At a cost of at least $126 per day per person, ICE spends more than $4 million daily to incarcerate. In Nielsen v. Preap, No. 14-16326, the Court will decide whether ICE is required to detain migrants who have served their jail or prison time for a laundry list of crimes and have [...]

Jennings v. Rodriguez highlights need for detention time limits

Justine N. Stefanelli The US Supreme Court’s decision in Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U.S. ___ (2018) (slip opinion), denying bail hearings to thousands of detainees is a serious blow to the rule of law. Detaining categories of people without regard to their individual circumstances is an arbitrary interference with the right to liberty and, at the very least, should be accompanied by procedural safeguards. The most obvious of these is a temporal limit on immigration detention. However, US immigration law provides no maximum. The closest the law has come is the setting of a presumptively [...]

California Supreme Court decision opens breathing room for migrants, alters typical political lineup

Last week, the California Supreme Court issued an important decision expanding the ability of migrants given poor advice about the immigration consequences of a conviction to obtain relief. In People v. Patterson, No. S225193, slip op. (Cal. March 27, 2017), the court unanimously held that a migrant isn’t barred from withdrawing a guilty plea that results in mandatory immigration detention and deportability simply because the plea form stated that conviction “may” result in adverse immigration consequences. Pursuant to Cal. Penal Code § 1016.5, all defendants are provided this generic [...]