Fifth Circuit Rules Detained Immigrants Lack Constitutional Right to Bond Hearings
Rights & JusticeWell-coveredThe Facts
- The Fifth Circuit ruled 10-7 that certain detained immigrants have no constitutional right to bond hearings.
- The full Fifth Circuit reversed lower-court orders requiring individual bond hearings for three detained immigrants.
- The ruling concerns immigrants who entered the United States without lawful admission.
- The Fifth Circuit hears appeals from federal courts in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
- The ruling limits a legal route detainees in the circuit had used to seek release from immigration detention.
- The decision applies to people classified as applicants for admission under federal immigration law.
Context
What is a bond hearing?
A bond hearing allows a detained immigrant to ask an immigration judge for release while immigration proceedings continue; judges can assess factors such as danger and flight risk. Breitbart theepochtimes.com THE LOCAL REPORT AR…
Who does the decision cover?
The case concerns immigrants who entered without lawful admission and whom the court treated as applicants for admission under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Texas Tribune EconoTimes THE LOCAL REPORT AR…
What did the court decide about due process?
The majority held that Fifth Amendment due-process protections do not require bond hearings for the detainees covered by the case. Reuters Washington Examiner Honolulu Star Adver…
Where Left and Right agree, and where they split
- Where Left and Right agree
- A divided 10-7 Fifth Circuit ruling eliminated the bond-hearing route that detainees classified as applicants for admission in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi had used to seek release.
- Where Left and Right split
- The left and the right split on whether bond hearings protect liberty or threaten border control.
- Why they won’t converge
- The divide is one of values: whether constitutional due process attaches to unadmitted entrants, or whether sovereignty over the border lets Congress define detention without judicial review, a dispute no ruling on facts resolves.
How left and right read it
Locking someone up without a hearing on whether they must be locked up at all is the kind of power a constitution exists to check, which is why a 10-7 panel stripping bond hearings from people classified as applicants for admission cuts so deep. It erases the one route detainees across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi had to ask a judge for release. Give each person their hearing.
“That policy has been overwhelmingly rejected by courts nationwide, including by more than 460 district court judges appointed by all modern presidents and nine of the 11 appeals court circuits to consider it.” — POLITICO
A country that cannot hold people who entered without lawful admission while it decides whether they may stay has given up the practical meaning of its own border. The 10-7 ruling reverses lower-court orders forcing bond hearings for applicants for admission, closing the route detainees in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi used to win release. Sovereignty is settled at the threshold.
“A federal appeals court ruled Friday that illegal immigrants who snuck across the border without detection can be detained pending the outcome of their deportation cases, effectively blessing President Trump's approach.” — Washington Times
A bond hearing lets a judge weigh liberty against the border. This ruling takes that judgment away from applicants for admission in three states.
The receipts — 24 sources
Wire services (1)
Independent coverage (23)
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