Thread: Inhofe introduces bill to close immigration catch-and-release loophole

Inhofe introduces bill to close immigration catch-and-release loophole

Posted: Thursday, January 29, 2015 12:59 pm

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) today re-introduced Keep Our Communities Safe Act (S.291) with Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), David Vitter (R-La.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas). The legislation would close the legal loophole created by the U.S. Supreme Court in Zadvydas v. Davis case (2001) that requires immigration authorities to release back into the United States any immigrant that has not been accepted for deportation to other countries after being detained for six months. This practice is commonly referred to as “catch and release.”

“The Obama Administration is failing to protect American communities with its lackadaisical immigration policies,” Inhofe said. “While the president issues executive orders to flood our borders with illegal immigrants, he could be using his pen and phone to close a dangerous loophole that is allowing immigrants, who have committed a crime of violence or an aggravated felony, to roam freely in the United States.

Currently, if no other country will accept a convicted immigrant for deportation within six months, federal policy instructs for them to be released back into the United States. In 2013 alone, more than 36,000 immigrants convicted for crimes such as homicide and sexual assault were released back into our communities after their countries of origin failed to respond to deportation orders. Keep Our Communities Safe Act would close the catch-and-release loophole and require DHS to re-certify every six months if a person is a threat. I urge Congress to take up this legislation and help protect America from the several thousands of violent offenders currently being released back into the United States each year."

This bill allows for DHS to detain non-removable immigrants beyond six months in these specific situations:
· The alien will be removed in the reasonably foreseeable future;
· The alien would have been removed but for the alien’s refusal to make all reasonable efforts to comply and cooperate with the Secretary’s efforts to remove him;
· The alien has a highly contagious disease;
· Release would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences;
· Release would threaten national security; or
· Release would threaten the safety of the community and the alien either is an aggravated felon or has committed a crime of violence.

http://www.edmondsun.com/news/state_...8f32d5194.html

Currently, if no other country will accept a convicted immigrant for deportation within six months, federal policy instructs for them to be released back into the United States. In 2013 alone, more than 36,000 immigrants convicted for crimes such as homicide and sexual assault were released back into our communities after their countries of origin failed to respond to deportation orders.

So, we're stuck with millions of illegal alien criminals from murderers to rapists and other lawbreakers because their home country failed to respond to deportation orders? What are they talking about? Do you mean to tell me that countries can just ignore deportation orders from other countries and leave their dregs in another nation? Of all the treaties, trade agreements, and "rules" and resolutions of the United Nations, and there is no requirement that a home country respond to a deportation order from another country? Really??!!

Well, if THAT doesn't just illuminate better than any discovery we've made yet what a totally incompetent laughing-stock embarrassment our entire foreign relations policy is and apparently has been for a very very long time. Let me tell you this, if I were President, there wouldn't be even 1 cent of foreign trade with any country that didn't respond to a deportation order within 24 hours, there wouldn't be 1 dime of foreign aid, there wouldn't be a single loan, not a barrel of oil, not a stock trade, not a "remittance", nothing between our country and any nation that would dare not to respond immediately to a deportation order from the US with sincerest apologies for the misbehavior of their citizens and full reparation paid on the spot for all costs and damages incurred by our nation including our citizens because their citizens invaded our country and caused US harm of any kind in any way, shape or form.

Let me tell you something, what these illegal aliens are doing to our citizens and our nation is not all that different than what most enemies would do to US if we'd lost a war. With what this treasonous government has allowed to go on through illegal immigration and massive immigration makes one wonder why in the hell we send troops anywhere to do anything, when we've already been invaded at home, our society and culture completely altered, our government converted from a Republic of-by-and-for the people of the United States to a Bankrupt Socialist Pig House serving foreign interests, and our citizens not only reduced to some bizarre form of second class citizenry but a third caste of undesirables being forced by our own government to cow-tow to a bunch of untouchable lawbreaking illegal aliens and immigrants who by all measures have been rubber-stamped "Above The Law". Based on this reality, it would be fine with me if Congress de-funded and shut down the entire DHS permanently, since from where we are now, there hasn't been and obviously will be no "homeland security" worth a dollar of taxpayer money.

It is outrageous, it is intolerable, it is insanity and it all must be stopped now. Defund the whole DHS outfit.

This isn't new information.
We have been dealing with this since 2001 when the U.S. Supreme Court made the ruling.

Zadvydas v. Davis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Zadvydas v. Davis
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 21, 2001 Decided June 28, 2001
Full case name	Kestutis Zadvydas v. Christine G. Davis and Immigration and Naturalization Service, John D. Ashcroft, Attorney General, et al.
Citations	533 U.S. 678 (more)121 S.Ct. 2491; 150 L.Ed.2d 653
Prior history	Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 208 F.3d 815; Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 185 F.3d 279
Holding
Detention of unremoveable admitted immigrants cannot exceed six months unless removal is in the foreseeable future or if there are other special circumstances.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority	Breyer, joined by Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, Ginsburg
Dissent	Scalia, joined by Thomas
Dissent	Kennedy, joined by Rehnquist, Scalia (Part I), Thomas (Part I)
Laws applied
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6) 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3)

Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.

The court ruled that the plenary power doctrine does not empower the United States to detain indefinitely immigrants under order of deportation whom no other country will accept.

To justify detention of immigrants for a period longer than six months, the government was required to show removal in the foreseeable future or special circumstances.^[1]

Contents

[hide]

• 1 Background
  
  • 1.1 Fifth Circuit case
  • 1.2 Ninth Circuit case
  • 1.3 Appeals
  
  
• 2 Opinions of the court
  
  • 2.1 Arguments
  • 2.2 Majority opinion
  • 2.3 Dissenting opinions
  
  
• 3 Subsequent developments
  
  • 3.1 Impact
  • 3.2 Supreme Court case
  • 3.3 Legislative remedies
  
  
• 4 See also
• 5 References
• 6 External links

Background[edit]

Fifth Circuit case[edit]

Kestutis Zadvydas was a resident alien in the United States who was ordered deported in 1994 based on his criminal record. Zadvydas was born of Lithuanian parents while inGermany, but was not a citizen of either country, and neither would accept him.^[2][3] Under federal law^[4] a person is to be detained for up to 90 days pending their deportation. If the 90 days passes without deportation, the Attorney General could detain the person indefinitely until they could be deported.

In September 1995 after Lithuania and Germany had refused to accept Zadvydas, he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court. In 1996 the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) unsuccessfully requested that the Dominican Republic accept Zadvydas based on his wife's Dominican citizenship. In October 1997 the District Court granted the writ and ordered him released under supervision.^[2][5] The government appealed and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district court.^[6]

Ninth Circuit case[edit]

Kim Ho Ma was a Cambodian, also a resident alien in the United States. At age 17, Kim was convicted of manslaughter and was ordered deported. Cambodia did not have a treaty with the United States and would not accept Kim.^[2] In 1999, Kim filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court. A five-judge panel of that court considered Kim's case in connection with about 100 other cases and ordered him released.^[7] The government appealed and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court.^[8]

Appeals[edit]

Zadvydas in the Fifth Circuit case and the government in the Kim case both appealed to the Supreme Court. As both circuit courts had come to opposing positions, there was a split in the circuits which may only be resolved by a Supreme Court ruling. The court granted certiorari in both cases and consolidated the cases for the hearing.^[2]

Opinions of the court[edit]

Arguments[edit]

Robert F. Barnard argued the case for Zadvydas. Jay W. Stansell argued the case for Kim. Representing the United States was Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler.Amicus curiae briefs were filed by the Washington Legal Foundation on behalf of the government in the Zadvydas case and by the Legal Immigration Network, Inc., the American Association of Jews from the former USSR, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, and Carolyn Patty Blum, et al., on behalf of Kim.^[2]

Majority opinion[edit]

Justice Stephen Breyer, author of the majority opinion

Justice Stephen Breyer delivered the opinion of the court. He noted that the statute grants the Attorney General the authority to detain a deportee past the term of the 90-day removal period, without judicial or administrative review. Breyer indicated that an indefinite, potentially permanent detention was unconstitutional. Using the principles ofstatutory construction, Breyer stated that the court must infer that the law limits such a detention to that period that is necessary to accomplish the removal of the alien from the United States.

Since the detention was for the purpose of removing the alien from the country, once the alien cannot be removed, the immigration purpose for the detention no longer exists.^[9]

Without a limitation on detentions, the court would be forced to declare the law unconstitutional.^[3] He noted that allowing an administrative agency to conduct an unreviewable hearing on such a fundamental right had already been ruled against by the court.^[2][10]

The government also argued that Congress had plenary power to enact such a law under its authority to control immigration, and that both the executive and judicial branches must defer to that decisionmaking. Breyer noted that while Congress may use that power, they "must chose 'a constitutionally permissive means of implementing' that power" and the interpretation that the government advocates is not such a permissive means.

The court ruled that a hearing must be held after a six-month detention.^[2][10][11] Substantive due process applied to aliens that resided within the United States, and absent a showing that they were a danger to society or a flight risk, they could not be detained.^[9]

Dissenting opinions[edit]

Justice Antonin Scalia, author of one of the dissenting opinions

Justice Antonin Scalia dissented from the majority. Scalia stated that an alien who has no legal right to be in the United States has no right to release into the country that is trying to expel him or her. Scalia quoted Justice Robert H. Jackson in his dissent, in asserting that "Due process does not invest any alien with a right to enter the United States, nor confer on those admitted the right to remain against the national will."[italics in original]^[2]

Justice Anthony Kennedy also dissented. Kennedy said that the majority disregarded congressional intent and then rewrote the statute. He posited that Congress gave the Attorney General the express authority to order continued detention, and added that the majority misapplied the concept of statutory construction, noting that the court could only distinguish between plausible interpretations. If there were two or more interpretations, then the court is bound to accept the one that does not create a constitutional issue, but Kennedy states that this was never the situation in this case.^{[citation needed]}

Subsequent developments[edit]

Impact[edit]

According to the U.S. Inspector General, nearly 134,000 immigrants with final orders of removal were released into the general population in the U.S. from 2001 to 2004, as a result of the Zadvydas ruling.^[12] According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, nearly 4,000 dangerous criminal immigrants have been released into the general population in the U.S. each year since 2008.^[12]

According to a number of legal experts, INS has taken the view that it can detain aliens for preventive rather than punitive purposes. These experts state INS has no authority to conduct a punitive detention, which is only authorized by criminal statutes.^[3][9] Civil libertarians have noted that over 2,000 aliens have been held indefinitely without hope of repatriation^[13] and that the Department of Homeland Security holds approximately 31,000 immigrants in detention at any given time.^[14]

It has been noted that 20 years prior to the Zadvydas decision, approximately 122,000Mariel Cubans had been paroled into the United States after facing indefinite detention. Most of these were inadmissible to the United States due to their criminal convictions inCuba and in the U.S., but were not deportable as Cuba refused to accept them back. Once paroled, many lived productive lives^{[citation needed]} although they remained ineligible for lawful permanent residency in the United States.^[13] In one case, a resident alien with a 20-year old battery conviction was detained for more than four years before being released.^[14]

Opponents of the Zadvydas decision note that suspects in two murder cases in 2012 had been allowed to stay in the US despite final deportation orders. In January 2012, the Miami Herald revealed that Kesler Dufrene, accused of murdering three people in Miami, was released from federal detention despite a final deportation order to Haiti because the US suspended deportations to that country for several months after the 2010 Haiti earthquake.^[15] This case also allowed deportee Binh Thai Luc to be released from immigration detention after his native Vietnam declined to offer the US government travel documents. Luc was arrested in March 2012 for the murder of five people in San Francisco.^[16]

Supreme Court case[edit]

Main article: Clark v. Martinez
Zadvydas was cited in a subsequent Supreme Court case, Clark v. Martinez,^[17] that reiterated the principle that all people within the United States were entitled to due process and could not be deprived of liberty indefinitely.^[18] Justice Scalia, despite his dissent inZadvydas, authored the 7-2 decision in Clark. The government had argued that the law allowed the government to detain people up to the point that the detention "approached constitutional limits."^[17] Scalia noted that "If we were, as the Government seems to believe, free to 'interpret' statutes as becoming inoperative when they 'approach constitutional limits,' we would be able to spare ourselves the necessity of ever finding a statute unconstitutional as applied."^[17]

Legislative remedies[edit]

In an effort to roll back Zadvydas, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has introduced the "Keep Our Communities Safe Act" (H.R. 1932), legislation aimed at allowing indefinite detention of unremovable admitted immigrants and asylum applicants (immigrants awaiting approval of asylum applications).^[19]

Three experts lent support to the legislation during a hearing on the Act: Gary Mead, Executive Associate Director for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations; Thomas H. Dupree, Jr., partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP (and former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General under President Bush); and Ft. Myers Chief of Police Douglas Baker, a colleague of Officer Widman who was murdered by an alien released as a result of Zadvydas.^[20]

Conversely, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) have denounced the legislation, stating that: "The bill, H.R. 1932, would strip important due process protections of harmless individuals by needlessly increasing the government's already broad authority to detain noncitizens."

David Leopold, a past AILA President, explains: "The deprivation of liberty is a powerful tool that must be exercised carefully. DHS has exceptional latitude to detain noncitizens who are a flight risk or pose a danger to our communities.

Those powers do not need further expansion." In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security detained nearly 400,000 immigrants at a cost of $2 billion.^[21] If H.R.1932 passes, this cost could increase exponentially.^{[citation needed]} The constitutionality of the bill has been questioned. Joanne Lin, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), stated that the bill would authorize indefinite detention of immigrants without providing procedural safeguards.<sup>[22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zadvydas_v._Davis</sup>

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

This isn't new information.
We have been dealing with this since 2001 when the U.S. Supreme Court made the ruling.

Zadvydas v. Davis

The Supreme Court Ruling has nothing to do with this. There's no problem with the Supreme Court Ruling, I totally understand it. The issue is the complete impotence of the US government to have their Deportation Orders respected by countries who want our aid, our money, our trade, our investments, and so forth. I agree with the Court that we can't hold them for deportation indefinitely. There has to be limit on the time they can serve in the US prison for being in the country illegally. I completely agree with that. The issue is the home countries disrespecting our government, nation and people and their unwillingness to take their dregs back. The other issue is our own country that won't build a fence, hands out jobs to these criminals, gives them amnesty, provides them with welfare, and treats them like they're above the law, as if they're some type of untouchable international high caste group of individuals when they the dregs of society.

We should drop them all of at the Embassies or Consulates of their home country, put guards around it and arrest them again if and when they re-enter US soil and start the clock ticking again on another arrest and another time period until the home country takes responsibility for them and hauls them out of here.

You have to give Castro credit for out-smarting our dumb ass government when he sent thousands of his dregs off in boats to the US to claim "asylum" and when we cried "but these are criminals", he laughed and refused to take them back. Well, duh. They're all serous lawbreakers which makes them all serious criminals, and of course we could have threatened Castro with something like no money, no trade, no relations ... but alas, we had nothing with which to threaten or barter because of the embargo.

We have incompetents in our government, so many doing so much wrong, it is just unbelievable.

The DHS is a complete flop and failure and needs to be undone. The Coast Guard and Border Patrol need to be put back where they were before DHS was formed. Coast Guard should be back with the Department of Transportation and Border Patrol should be back with the US Department of Labor.

US Senate Bill to End ‘Catch-And-Release’ of Convicted Immigrants

US 03:10 30.01.2015(updated 05:47 30.01.2015)
3410

US Senator Jim Inhofe has proposed a bill called Keep Our Communities Safe Act, aimed to cover a loophole in the current US immigration legislation, allowing convicted immigrants to reenter US society every year.

© REUTERS/ KEVIN LAMARQUE

US Mayors to Support Obama’s Immigration Plan in Court

WASHINGTON, January 30 (Sputnik) — A new US Senate bill aims to eliminate a legal quirk that allows tens of thousands of convicted immigrants to reenter US society every year, Senator Jim Inhofe said in a press release.“In 2013 alone, more than 36,000 immigrants convicted for crimes such as homicide and sexual assault were released back into our communities after their countries of origin failed to respond to deportation orders,” Inhofe said on Thursday.

“Keep Our Communities Safe Act would close the catch-and-release loophole and require [US Department of Homeland Security] DHS to re-certify every six months if a person is a threat.”

The legislation, proposed by Inhofe, would close the legal loophole created by a US Supreme Court case in 2001 that requires authorities to release any immigrant that has not been accepted for deportation after six months of detainment, Inhofe stated.

US House Passes Security Funding Bill Blocking Obama’s Immigration Actions

Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, also took aim at US President Barack Obama’s immigration policies.“The Obama Administration is failing to protect American communities with its lackadaisical immigration policies,” Inhofe said. “While the president issues executive orders to flood our borders with illegal immigrants, he could be using his pen and phone to close a dangerous loophole that is allowing immigrants, who have committed a crime of violence or an aggravated felony, to roam freely in the United States.”

The legal loophole came to the forefront after an incident that began in 2006, when the United States set free a convicted Vietnamese immigrant it was unable to deport, who is now facing charges for allegedly murdering five people in 2012, Inhofe added.

In November, President Obama announced that about 5 million undocumented immigrants who are parents of US citizens or lawful permanent residents will have a right to obtain temporary relief from removal, as well as an opportunity to work in the United States legally and pay taxes. In December, 25 mostly Republican US states led by Texas filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s executive action on immigration.

http://sputniknews.com/us/20150130/1017534689.html

SPONSOR James “Jim” Inhofe Senior Senator from Oklahoma
PARTY Republican

Summary No summaries available.

Prognosis7% chance of getting past committee.
2% chance of being enacted.

Only 11% of bills made it past committee and only about 3% were enacted in 2011–2013. [show factors | methodology]

Cosponsors 4 cosponsors (4R) (show)
Cruz, Ted [R-TX]
(joined Jan 28, 2015)
Grassley, Charles “Chuck” [R-IA]
(joined Jan 28, 2015)
Sessions, Jefferson “Jeff” [R-AL]
(joined Jan 28, 2015)
Vitter, David [R-LA]
(joined Jan 28, 2015)