Trump’s Attempt to Deny Bond Hearings For Immigrants Rejected by Court of Appeals

NEW YORK, New York – Immigration advocates have welcomed a United States Federal Court of Appeals’ rejection of President Donald Trump’s attempt to deny bond hearings for immigrants.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans ruled that people in immigration detention have the right to meaningful due process and must receive a bond hearing within 90 days.

The decision rejects the Trump administration’s attempt to detain immigrants without having to justify their continued detention before a judge.

The 2-1 ruling applies to immigrants held in immigration detention across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi – states that collectively detain some of the largest numbers of immigrants in the country.

“For thousands of people who have been held for prolonged periods without meaningful due process, the decision makes clear that the federal government must justify their continued detention,” Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) on Monday.

NYIC is an umbrella coalition of over 200 immigration and refugee groups in New York State.

“Every person, no matter where they were born, deserves to be treated with dignity and has the Constitutional right to due process,” Awawdeh added. “No one should be deprived of their liberty without a meaningful opportunity to make their case before a judge.

“We applaud the Appeals Court in this case for reaffirming this fundamental principle and making clear that the government cannot detain people without accountability,” he continued. “At a time when the Trump administration is spending billions of taxpayer dollars to expand and prolong immigration detention for our immigrant neighbors, this decision is a critical reminder that the Constitution still applies.

“The law is clear: immigrants have the right to ask for a bond hearing,” he said. “Families belong together, and Americans deserve a government that follows the law.”

The Washington-based National Immigration Project – a membership organization of attorneys, advocates and community members who believe that all people should be treated with “dignity, live freely, and flourish” – said on Monday that the court’s decision deals “a major blow” to the Trump administration’s new mass detention efforts, rejecting the government’s argument that it can detain people without ever having to justify it to a judge.

The National Immigration Project said at the center of the case are three fathers of US citizen children—all longtime Texas residents with no criminal history—who were arrested following routine traffic stops and detained without any meaningful opportunity to challenge whether that detention was necessary.

The American Immigration Council, which works to create “a more welcoming and fair immigration system,” and the National Immigration Project argued before the Fifth Circuit on behalf of these three men, whose cases were consolidated for appeal.

“This case asked a simple question: if the government wants to lock someone up, does it have to show that imprisonment serves a purpose?” said Rebecca Cassler, senior litigation attorney at the American Immigration Council, who argued the case.

She said the court’s decision “reaffirms that constitutional rights do not disappear simply because someone is in immigration proceedings.

“The government must provide a meaningful opportunity for people to challenge their detention,” Cassler said.

In its decision, the court held that the Constitution does not allow the government to detain noncitizens for “indefinite and extensive periods of time without an individualized determination.”

Cassler said noncitizens detained under the government’s recently expanded mandatory detention policy are entitled to a bond hearing within 90 days of their arrest, and, at that hearing, the government must provide an individualized justification for continued detention.

“It cannot simply hold someone because of how they entered the country, no matter what the immigration detention statute says,” she added.