Supreme Court sides with Trump on immigration detention
The Supreme Court has given the Trump administration an immigration policy victory by ruling criminal noncitizens can be detained at any time.
The 5-4 ruling states federal officials may detain convicted immigrants indefinitely after they finish serving prison time, even years after.
Advocates had argued the law only allowed for detention immediately after immigrants were released from prison.
The court’s liberal justices dissented from the conservative decision.
Tuesday’s ruling reversed a lower court decision that had found the existing law to mean federal authorities must detain convicted immigrants within 24 hours of their release from criminal detention.
Civil rights lawyers had claimed after that deadline, immigrants should be permitted a bond hearing so they were not forced to remain in custody indefinitely while their deportation case went forward.
The Trump administration, however, said the government should be allowed to hold convicted noncitizens at any time – and the conservative-majority top court has agreed.
In the conservative opinion, Associate Justice Samuel Alito said the strict ruling was to ensure homeland security officials were not constrained by inappropriate deadlines to detain convicted noncitizens.
Source: BBC