The Supreme Court issued rulings in two related cases on Monday that will make it much harder for noncitizens to challenge U.S. immigration policies in court.
In one unanimous decision authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court ruled the federal government may continue to detain certain immigrants in removal proceedings without offering a bond hearing after six months regardless of how long they’ve been held. The decision centered on the case Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez, with Justice Stephen Breyer concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The pair of immigration-related decisions resulted in overturning rulings from the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco and 3rd Circuit Court in Philadelphia, respectively.
The appeals courts upheld a precedent established in the 2001 case Zadvydas v. Davis, which was a 5-4 decision authored by Breyer. However, several of the justices on the current nine-member court conceded it would likely be decided differently if arguments were heard today.
In the 2001 case, the high court ruled at the time that the Constitution typically does not allow the government to hold immigrants for more than six months without providing them with a hearing and a chance to gain release on bond. Sotomayor argued the relevant statutory provision under U.S. code does not obligate the government to provide bond hearings after six months of detention.
Justice Samuel Alito authored the 6-3 opinion in a second immigration-related challenge called Garland v. Gonzalez, which was brought by a class-action lawsuit critical of the government’s practice of detaining certain immigrants for more than six months, similar to the situation under Arteaga-Martinez.
However, in Gonzalez, the court was determining whether a lower court overstepped its authority in granting challengers classwide relief in the lawsuit. The court’s majority said that it did, signaling the decision will have lasting impacts on how other immigration policies can be challenged in court.
Sotomayor wrote a partial dissent that was joined by Justice Elena Kagan and, in part, by Breyer.
“The ramifications of the Court’s errors should not be ignored,” Sotomayor wrote. “Today’s holding risks depriving many vulnerable noncitizens of any meaningful opportunity to protect their rights.”
“In a great many cases, the inevitable consequence of barring classwide injunctive relief will be that those violations will go unremedied, except as to the few fortunate enough to afford competent collateral counsel or to secure vigorous pro bono representation,” Sotomayor added.
The conclusion by the court’s majority could have ramifications in a separate forthcoming decision in a Texas-related challenge regarding President Joe Biden’s pursuit to rescind the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy that forced noncitizen migrants to stay in Mexico while awaiting immigration proceedings.
At the core of the legal fight in the Biden v. Texas case is whether the immigration program is discretionary and may be ended, as the Justice Department argued in April, or whether the only way to comply with what states say is a congressional command is not to release migrants through U.S. borders.
Democratic-led states and liberal groups have advocated the administration’s side while also voicing concerns about migrants forced to wait in Mexico who say the conditions across the southern border are unstable and make it difficult to find lawyers to handle asylum hearings.
A decision on the case is expected before the end of the present court term in June.
Reporting from The Washington Examiner.
