A Trump administration policy that says people held in immigration detention must stay there while their cases are decided has been struck down in another federal appeals court.
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over cases in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, ruled against the administration’s policy on Monday. In a 2-1 decision, the court found that holding people with pending immigration cases without an opportunity for bond violated the U.S. Constitution.
The court majority wrote that the government cannot “subject long-term law-abiding residents of the United States…to the hardship of mandatory detention without due process.” It also found the current policy overturned decades of precedent for bond hearings in immigration cases.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan says the decision will affect thousands of detained non-citizens in Michigan and three other states.
“The courts have yet again correctly rejected the Trump administration’s inhumane mandatory detention policy, concluding its reinterpretation of our country’s detention laws is illegal. We are thrilled for our clients and their families,” wrote My Khanh Ngo, senior staff attorney with the Michigan ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, in a press release.
Judicial panels in two other federal appeals courts have already sided with immigrants held in detention centers, while two others sided with the Trump administration. The policy’s ultimate fate will most likely be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lopez-Campos case
“Habeas corpus” petitions ask judges to decide if a person is being unlawfully detained in violation of their due process rights. In an August habeas petition ruling, a federal judge in Detroit freed Juan Manuel Lopez-Campos, a 46-year-old Mexican father of five U.S. citizen children, from a nearly two-month detention at the Monroe County Jail. It is one of four county jails in the state that hold immigrants on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Lopez-Campos had no criminal record. He was turned over to immigration authorities after Romulus police pulled him over for a minor traffic violation. His cases was consolidated with four others, including a longtime Michigan resident who went without treatment for leukemia while in immigration detention.
As of mid-February, a wave of more than 800 petitions was filed in Michigan's U.S. District Courts. The vast majority come from people detained at the North Lake Processing Center, a privately-run immigration detention facility in Northern Michigan.
Loading...
The Trump administration says judges are going “rogue” because, it argues, the law mandates detention of any immigrant without legal status.
But data show the party affiliations didn’t affect how federal judges in the Western District of Michigan, where the bulk of the caseload is, ruled on habeas petitions.
Michigan Public found that even if an immigrant is granted bond, it’s not a guarantee they’ll be released.
Adam Yahya Rayes contributed to this reporting.
