Fifth Circuit, Sitting En Banc, Rules Long-Resident Undocumented Immigrants Have No Constitutional Right to Bond Hearings
NEW ORLEANS — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, ruled on October 23 in Sosnava Rodriguez v. Vergara that noncitizens detained as "applicants for admission" under section 1225(b)(2)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act have no constitutional right to an individualized bond hearing, and that dangerousness and flight risk are immaterial under the mandatory-detention statute. The majority opinion was written by Judge Wilson and joined by Chief Judge Elrod.
The three petitioners are long-term undocumented residents of the United States. Ignacio Sosnava Rodriguez, a Mexican national, has lived in the United States for 22 years. Alejandro Villegas Angel, also a Mexican national, has lived in the country since 2011 and has two U.S.-citizen children. Miguel Angel Gomez Alvarado, a Honduran national, has a U.S.-citizen child. All three were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following traffic stops in Texas and held at the T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Taylor; none has a criminal history. Federal district courts had granted their habeas petitions, ordering bond hearings and their release; the en banc court reversed those orders.
The case stems from the Department of Homeland Security's recent reinterpretation of immigration law, under which people who entered the country without inspection are treated as "applicants for admission" subject to mandatory detention without bond, even after years of residence in the interior. On July 2, a three-judge panel of the court had held that due process requires a bond hearing within 90 days of detention. The full court vacated that ruling on July 10 and reheard argument on September 24. The majority concluded that procedural due process does not require hearings into facts the statute itself does not consider, and that a right to be free from detention during removal proceedings is not deeply rooted in the nation's history and tradition; what governs detention is the manner of entry, not the length of actual presence.
The Fifth Circuit covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, a region with one of the largest immigration-detention populations in the country. Detainees in the circuit may still challenge the government's classification of their status through habeas petitions, but can no longer demand bond hearings on due process grounds. The petitioners are represented by organizations including the National Immigration Project and the American Immigration Council. In July, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate of the Justice Department's Civil Division said of an interim ruling in the case that it made clear that "illegal aliens do not have a constitutional right to roam free in the United States during their removal proceedings."
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
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