The Supreme Court on Tuesday said immigrants held by the government and facing deportation are not entitled to a bond hearing even after months or years of detention.
The decision on the case, which had resulted in a deadlock before Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the court, has taken on added importance with President Donald Trump’s order of a crackdown on immigration violations.
In a splintered 5 to 3 decision, the court’s conservatives said the relevant statute does not even “hint,” as Justice Samuel Alito, wrote, at the broad reading of the right to bail hearings adopted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
That court had ruled that an immigrant held in detention must be given a bond hearing every six months and that detention beyond the initial six-month period is permitted only if the government proved that further detention is justified.
Alito rejected that standard, and said the more natural reading of the law at stake is that it authorizes detention “until the end of the applicable procedure,” and that “there is no justification for any of the procedural requirements” that the appeals court added.
The ruling brought an impassioned dissent from Justice Stephen Breyer, who underscored his dissatisfaction by reading part of it from the bench.
“The many thousands of individuals involved in this case are persons who believe they have a right to enter into or remain in the United States, and a sizable number turn out to be right,” Breyer said.
But he said some of them remain in detention for years because the government reads the statute as “denying them the bail hearings that the law makes available even for those accused of serious crimes.” He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.
Alito called the dissent an “utterly implausible” reading of the statute.
The six-month deadline that the 9th Circuit applied to a wide range of immigrants, from people detained after entering the United States for the first time to longtime legal residents.
The case was brought by Alejandro Rodriguez, a lawful permanent resident who came to the country as an infant. The Department of Homeland Security started removal proceedings because of a conviction for drug possession and an earlier conviction for joyriding.
Rodriguez, who was working as a dental assistant, was held for three years before he challenged his confinement. The average detention for the others who joined his lawsuit was 13 months.
At oral argument, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, representing a group of noncitizens held for more than a year without a hearing, told the Supreme Court that the outcome of the case will affect thousands of people held in jail-like detention centers.
The case took on heightened significance as Trump has vowed to broadly increase immigration enforcement across the United States. Immigration arrests are up sharply since he took office in January, but deportations are down this year, in part because of a significant drop in illegal crossings on the southern border with Mexico.
Tuesday’s decision returns the case to the lower courts for further action, including an examination of whether the detainees have a constitutional right to a bail hearing. Alito said there was no need for the Supreme Court to decide that at this time.
Breyer criticized that as well, saying the issue was fully briefed at the Supreme Court.
“We need simply remember that the Constitution’s Due Process Clauses protects each person’s liberty from arbitrary deprivation,” he said.
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Gorsuch, said he would have dismissed the case because he believes the courts do not have the power to hear the claims. But since the majority disagreed, he joined the resolution of the case
Justice Elena Kagan took part in earlier hearings in the case, but recused herself belatedly.
She did not explain why, but it is likely she was involved in the case while serving as President Barack Obama’s solicitor general. Her participation would not have affected the outcome.
The case is Jennings v. Rodriguez.
The Washington Post’s Ann E. Marimow contributed to this report.
