Trump administration’s immigrant detention policy broadly rejected by federal judges

In federal courtrooms across America a pattern has emerged in cases in which immigrants are being rounded up and jailed without a hearing That s a departure from fundamental constitutional protections in the U S that provide the right to a hearing before indefinite imprisonment In response federal judges are systematically rejecting the Trump administration s attempt to drastically expand who can be locked up without a hearing while awaiting deportation proceedings The Trump White House plan has been challenged in at least cases in federal district courts according to a new ruling by U S District Judge Lewis A Kaplan Challengers have prevailed in of those cases decided by over different judges sitting in about different courts across the United States Behind those numbers are thousands of people whose freedom hangs in the balance while courts decide whether their imprisonment is lawful Trump administration personnel claim they are targeting only the worst of the worst in immigration enforcement Yet nearly three-quarters of people detained had no criminal history at all Of those with criminal histories a great number of involved only minor offenses such as traffic violations The immigrants are in civil immigration proceedings to determine whether they can remain in the United States Yet under the administration s new program several are being held in jail-like facilities indefinitely including state-run prisons located in remote areas soft-sided tent structures military bases and even in prisons in other countries according to a overview from the Migration Guidelines Institute think tank As a law professor who studies due process in immigration proceedings I view the overwhelming judicial consensus against this guidelines as the federal courts performing their essential constitutional function checking executive overreach The courts are enforcing fundamental due process protections Whether this consensus will prevail however depends on appeals courts and ultimately the Supreme Court A radical reinterpretation The current argument centers on a guidelines shift the Department of Homeland Safety implemented in July In an internal memo DHS reinterpreted decades-old immigration law to classify virtually all undocumented immigrants in the U S as applicants for admission who are subject to mandatory detention under the Immigration and Nationality Act For years this provision applied primarily to people apprehended at the territory line shortly after entering the country The new interpretation extends it to anyone present in the U S illegally That includes people who entered years or decades ago have established families and businesses and are pursuing legal pathways to remain in the U S The practical effect of the change is that people who were previously entitled to request release on bond while their deportation cases proceeded are now subject to automatic indefinite detention without court review of whether their imprisonment is justified Related They came to the US legally Then Trump stripped their status away Courts overwhelmed by petitions Within months of the July approach announcement more than emergency habeas petitions legal challenges to unlawful imprisonment reached federal courts nationwide In Michigan alone U S District Judge Hala Jarbou a Trump appointee received more than individual cases from detainees challenging their imprisonment Then additional detainees filed a joint lawsuit Cases arose across the country as immigrants who were arrested at workplaces courthouses or during routine check-ins with immigration officers demanded federal courts to order their release or grant them bond hearings The Trump administration has fought these cases on multiple fronts It has argued that the detention approach is lawful and that federal courts lack jurisdiction to review it at all The establishment has invoked provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that it indicates strip courts of jurisdiction over certain immigration decisions But federal judges have largely rejected these jurisdictional arguments They have detected that courts retain the power to review whether detentions comply with the Constitution and federal law As one district court judge explained accepting the establishment s position would mean the executive branch could detain noncitizens indefinitely without ever having to justify that detention to a court It s a end that would raise serious constitutional concerns about suspending habeas corpus the fundamental right to challenge unlawful imprisonment Judge Kaplan similarly concluded that the current administration s unilateral decision that all noncitizens are to be mandatorily detained affords to such individuals no process let alone due process It is unconstitutional The initiative s ripple effects extend beyond the courts Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained a record people in November more than any previous administration had ever held at one time The American Immigration Council which advocates for immigration rights documented deaths in ICE detention during fiscal year The previous four years combined saw such deaths A nationwide remedy The piecemeal nature of hundreds of individual court rulings creates its own problems Each exigency petition requires rushed briefing and a hearing That strains the courts and detained immigrants ability to secure representation Outcomes can vary based on which judge hears a event creating geographic disparities in who remains detained and who is issued That s why the November decision in Maldonado Bautista v Santacruz is potentially transformative U S District Judge Sunshine S Sykes certified a nationwide class of noncitizens subject to the strategy and separately ruled that the regime s interpretation of the law was wrong detainees are entitled to bond hearings Combined with the nationwide class certification this ruling could require the Trump administration to provide bond hearings to thousands of people at the moment in mandatory detention But implementation has been uneven Immigration judges who are Justice Department employees not independent federal judges have responded inconsistently to Judge Sykes order In a fresh immigration court decision in Memphis Tenn a judge denied a bond hearing request The judge stated that further guidance from the Executive Office for Immigration Review a Department of Justice office was required before complying with Sykes order Attorneys representing the class say they ve seen similar resistance from specific immigration judges while others have begun granting bond hearings They plan to return to federal court in January to present evidence of this confusion and seek further relief The near-unanimous rejection by federal judges insulated from political pressure by lifetime appointments demonstrates why the Constitution grants judges life tenure Federal courts remain the final check when executive action threatens fundamental due process rights Cassandra Burke Robertson Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Ethics Event Western Reserve University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license Read the original article Read more about this topic Trump s return to MAGA rallies is a flop Trump s reality TV tricks can t hide the affordability emergency Immigration agents grab and mistreat citizens The post Trump administration s immigrant detention framework broadly rejected by federal judges appeared first on Salon com