WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court wrestled Wednesday with a case about the governments ability to detain certain immigrants after theyve served sentences for committing crimes in the United States. Several justices expressed concerns with the governments reading of immigration law.
Justice Stephen Breyer seemed perhaps the most sympathetic to the arguments of immigrants in the case. The immigrants, mostly green-card holders, say they should get hearings where they can argue for their release while deportation proceedings against them are ongoing. Breyer noted that the United States gives every triple ax murderer a bail hearing.
While members of the courts conservative majority seemed more inclined than its liberal members to back the government, both of President Donald Trumps appointees asked questions that made it less clear how they might ultimately rule.
The issue in the case before the justices has to do with the detention of noncitizens who have committed a broad range of crimes that make them deportable. Immigration law tells the government to pick those people up when they are released from federal or state prisons and jails and then hold them without bond hearings while an immigration court decides whether they should be deported.
But those affected by the law arent always picked up immediately and are sometimes not detained until years later. They argue that unless theyre picked up essentially within a day of being released, theyre entitled to a hearing where they can argue that they arent a danger to the community and are not likely to flee. If a judge agrees, they can stay out of custody while their deportation case goes forward. Thats the same hearing rule that applies to other noncitizens the government is trying to deport.
The Trump administration argues, as the Obama administration did, against hearings for those convicted of crimes and affected by the law. The government reads immigration law to say that detention is mandatory for those people regardless of when they are picked up.
The case is 16-1363 Nielsen v. Preap.
Supreme Court wrestles with immigrant detention
