The full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that detained immigrants who entered the United States without formal admission are not constitutionally entitled to bond hearings while they await deportation.
The 17-member court ruled in the case Sosnava Rodriguez v. Ortega, which centred on three men who had lived in Texas for years before their arrests by immigration authorities. Judge Cory Wilson wrote the majority opinion, joined by eight other judges, and held that the men were not entitled to hearings beyond the process Congress provided.
The ruling reverses an earlier panel decision that had required bond hearings. It upholds the Trump administration’s policy of mandatory detention for people in this category, a policy that had prompted thousands of habeas corpus petitions from detainees, many of them filed in Louisiana courts.
Seven judges dissented. Attorneys for the plaintiffs called the ruling an affront to the Constitution, while the Department of Homeland Security counsel described it as a major win for mandatory detention. The Supreme Court is set to hear a related case this term on whether the mandatory detention statute applies to longtime immigrants arrested inside the country.
Source: Fox News
