Last Tuesday the Supreme Court ruled that immigrants detained by the government, facing deportation, no longer have the right to a bond hearing, even after months or years of being detained. This divisive case had resulted in gridlock until Trump’s appointment of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. The impact of this decision will be felt, as the President’s stance on immigration has been to increase power to ICE and “crackdown” on immigration.
The case was decided on a 5 to 3 vote, with the conservative Justices saying that the statue gives too much of a broad reading of the right to bail hearings. The statue that had previously been ruled on by the Supreme Court stated that “an immigrant held in detention must be given a bond hearing every six months,” the government had to prove the justification of any detention beyond that time period. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. stated his decision to vote for this new statue as a more appropriate reading of the law, authorizing detention “until the end of the applicable proceedings.”
There is a possibility of a change in this new law as the Supreme Court has sent the case back to the lower court to analyze whether these bond hearings are a right granted by the Constitution. ACLU attorney Ahilan Arulanantham, who argued the case before the Supreme Court, is looking forward to this second opportunity. “We look forward to going back to the lower courts to show that these statues, now interpreted by the Supreme Court to require detention without any hearing, violate the Due Process Clause,” he said in a statement.
The previous six-month ruling applied to a variety of immigrants, including longtime residents. The lead plaintiff in the case, Alejandro Rodriguez, is an immigrant with legal status who came to the country as an infant. He was convicted of possession of a controlled substance and joyriding. Immigration detained him for three years without a bond hearing, until he challenged his detainment and won his case. The average detention for the others who joined his class-action lawsuit was 13 months.
Cover Photo: forbes.com