Court Restores Dangerous Practice of Treating Immigrants Individually

Judges endangered the Trump administration’s mass-detention program Thursday by reintroducing “individual circumstances” into a system designed to process human beings as an undifferentiated clerical problem. In a 2-1 ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that immigrants arrested inside the United States must receive some opportunity to seek release on bond while their cases proceed. The radical procedure, known in fringe constitutional circles as “a hearing,” could require federal officials to present evidence, answer questions and occasionally establish why a particular person should remain behind bars.

Judge Daniel Bress, a Trump appointee apparently compromised by the historical meaning of written statutes, joined Judge M. Margaret McKeown in rejecting the administration’s reading of a 1996 immigration law. Four other appeals courts have also refused to accept that Congress secretly ordered a vast detention regime and then concealed it from every previous president for nearly three decades. The Fifth and Eighth circuits have preserved the government’s preferred interpretation, under which “seeking admission” includes people who have already entered the country, built lives and become inconveniently specific.

President Donald Trump condemned the ruling’s outbreak of procedure, warning that hearings could allow judges to consider facts before endorsing the government’s conclusion. “We had the strongest detention because nobody got out, nobody even asked to get out, and now judges want hearings with facts and lawyers and all these expensive words,” Trump said. “Due process is a tremendous loophole used by people who claim they are individual people.” The widening circuit split could send the dispute to the Supreme Court, where the justices may determine whether liberty requires a hearing or merely a sufficiently confident Department of Homeland Security press release. The ruling therefore confirms that due process remains the federal government’s most dangerous paperwork error.

* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.