(John McCann, Headline USA) In two separate cases, the Supreme Court has ruled that illegal aliens may be detained indefinitely without a bond hearing. The justices also decreed that federal judges could not grant immigrants class-wide relief.
In the case of Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez, the Court held that federal law did not require immigration judges to hold bond hearings after six months. These bond hearings determine an immigrant’s eligibility for release while their asylum or deportation cases are pending.
The Court’s decision overruled a Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that upheld a lower court’s ruling in favor of the plaintiff, reported Breitbart. Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned the majority opinion for the 8-1 decision. The plaintiff’s lawyers argued that the federal laws use of the word “may” allowed for a judges discretion. But the Court disagreed, declaring that immigrants have no entitlement to a hearing.
In her opinion, Sotomayor stated that the Court has never “authorized prolonged detention without an individualized hearing, before a neutral adjudicator, at which the detainee has a meaningful opportunity to participate,” with the exception of national security cases.
In a similar case, Garland v. Gonzalez, the Court overruled a Ninth Circuit Court decision that extended the right to a bond hearing to every member of the class action lawsuit. The Supreme Court argued that immigrants must assert their right to a hearing on an individual basis, not on the behalf of all detainees in a class action lawsuit.
In his opinion for the 6-3 majority, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that federal law “generally prohibits lower courts from entering injunctions that order federal officials to take or to refrain from taking actions to enforce, implement, or otherwise carry out the specified statutory provisions.”
Both of these cases were brought by illegal immigrants who were challenging their detention by U.S border officials. In an interesting twist, the Biden administration has adopted the same position as the Trump White House in regards to both cases.
This stance by the current president has put him at odds with the rad-left faction of his party, who will almost certainly see these court rulings as a setback to their efforts to soften the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
