U.S. Supreme Court gives Trump victory on immigration detention

U.S. Supreme Court gives Trump victory on immigration detention


March 19, 2019


By Lawrence Hurley


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Tuesday endorsed U.S. government authority to detain immigrants awaiting deportation anytime - potentially even years - after they have completed prison terms for criminal convictions, handing President Donald Trump a victory as he pursues hardline immigration policies.

The court ruled 5-4, with its conservative justices in the majority and its liberal justices dissenting, that federal authorities could pick up such immigrants and place them into indefinite detention at any time, not just immediately after they finish their prison sentences.

The ruling, authored by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, leaves open the possibility of individual immigrants challenging the federal law involved in the case on constitutional grounds if they are detained long after they have completed their sentences.

In dissent, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer questioned whether the U.S. Congress when it wrote the law "meant to allow the government to apprehend persons years after their release from prison and hold them indefinitely without a bail hearing."

The Trump administration had appealed a lower court ruling in the case that favored immigrants, a decision it said would undermine the government's ability to deport immigrants who have committed crimes. Trump has backed limits on legal and illegal immigrants since taking office in January 2017.

The plaintiffs included two legal U.S. residents involved in separate lawsuits filed in 2013, a Cambodian immigrant named Mony Preap convicted of marijuana possession and a Palestinian immigrant named Bassam Yusuf Khoury convicted of attempting to manufacture a controlled substance.

Under federal immigration law, immigrants convicted of certain offenses are subject to mandatory detention during their deportation process. They can be held indefinitely without a bond hearing after completing their sentences.


(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)


https://news.yahoo.com/u-supreme-cou...142618725.html

Divided Supreme Court makes it easier to detain noncitizens with criminal records


March 19, 2019


Richard Wolf

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a victory Tuesday by making it easier to detain noncitizens with criminal records.


The justices reversed a lower court decision that required immigration officials to detain those immigrants upon release from jail or prison, rather than months or even years later. Advocates for immigrants had argued that such detentions must occur within 24 hours.


The 5-4 ruling was a victory for the Trump administration and the court's conservative justices, who complained during oral argument in October that the government cannot detain every immigrant immediately – particularly when money and manpower are limited, and state and local governments may be opposed.


It was the first decision of the court's current term in which the justices broke down along strictly ideological lines. Associate Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion. Associate Justice Stephen Breyer issued a dissent on behalf of the liberal justices.


The court cautioned the ruling was not directed at what Alito called the "extreme" examples of people detained years after they have finished serving time, when they are leading law-abiding lives and have blended into their communities. Those immigrants can file individual challenges, he said.


But it would be unreasonable, Alito said, for homeland security agents to "turn into pumpkins" at midnight on the day a noncitizen is released, forever unable to detain him. Various deadlines suggested by the other side, he said, "are taken out of thin air."


Breyer delivered his dissent from the bench, which is rarely done, to argue that the decision gives too much power to the federal government.

"It is a power to detain persons who committed a minor crime many years before," he said. "And it is a power to hold those persons, perhaps for many months, without any opportunity to obtain bail."


Immigration is an issue that frequently divides the high court. Last February, the justices ruled 5-3 that detained non-citizens lack the right to periodic bond hearings. In April, they ruled 5-4 that a law subjecting non-citizens to deportation for crimes of violence was unconstitutionally vague, with Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch joining a liberal majority.

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The Supreme Court weighed in again on immigration in a decision that affects undocumented immigrants released from jails or prisons.
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And in June, the conservative majority in a 5-4 ruling upheld President Donald Trump's ban on travel from five predominantly Muslim countries.

The class action case was brought by two lawful permanent residents who were taken into custody years after their release from prison. Both eventually received bond hearings and were allowed to stay in the country.

The Trump administration appealed lower court rulings in favor of the immigrants, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case last spring, before Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy retired and was replaced by Brett Kavanaugh.


During oral argument, American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Cecillia Wang said the law requires the government to detain immigrants on the same day their prison terms are completed. Several conservative justices said that was impossible.

"It's not reasonable if they don't have enough people to do it," Chief Justice John Roberts said. "I don't know what's reasonable in this situation. A month?"

Kavanaugh said Congress sought "harshness" in 1996 to crack down on illegal immigration and would not have wanted limits on the ability to detain ex-cons.
"Congress, wisely or not, thought that this class of aliens was dangerous, and they should not be trusted," Associate Justice Samuel Alito added.


But the court's four liberal justices said the government shouldn't be allowed to pick up undocumented immigrants years or even decades after they have reintegrated into their communities, particularly without a bond hearing.



https://news.yahoo.com/divided-supre...144053806.html

Supreme Court says government can detain immigrants with past criminal records even years after their release from custody


March 19, 2019


The Supreme Court held on Tuesday that the government can detain — without a bond hearing — immigrants with past criminal records, even if years have passed since they were released from criminal custody.



The case centered on whether detention without a bond hearing must occur promptly upon an immigrant’s release from criminal custody or whether it can happen months or even years later when the individual has resettled into society. The statute says simply that the detention can occur “when the alien is released” from custody.



The court voted 5-4 in favor of the government.

In his opinion for the court, Justice Samuel Alito said that the immigrants in the case had argued they were “owed bond hearings” in order to argue for their release. Alito said that the law did not support their argument.


Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately to say that the ruling was based entirely on the language of the statute at hand. He said it would be “odd” to interpret the statute as mandating the detention of certain “non citizens” who posed a serious risk of danger of flight, but “nonetheless” allow them to remain free during their removal proceedings if the executive branch failed “to immediately detain them upon their release from criminal custody.”


“The court correctly holds that the Executive Branch’s detention of the particular non citizens here remained mandatory even though the Executive Branch did not immediately detain them.”


Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the dissent, and took the unusual step of reading the opinion from the bench.

“It runs the gravest risk of depriving those whom the Government has detained of one of the oldest and most important of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms: the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law.”


https://ktvq.com/cnn-us-politics/201...-from-custody/

Trump Voters Tell President Amnesty Is A 2020 Deal Breaker

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