Tag: mandatory detention

Argument Recap from the Supreme Court- Jennings v. Rodriguez: The Mandatory Detention Case

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October 13, 2017
This article originally appeared on Law360: https://www.law360.com/immigration/articles/972810/assessing-constitutional-constraints-on-immigrant-detention Starting in July 1999, Hoang Minh Ly, a refugee and permanent resident of the United States, spent 564 days in detention by U.S. immigration authorities who sought his removal to his native Vietnam.[i]  He was released from detention only after a U.S. District Court in September 2000 ordered that an immigration judge provide him with a bond hearing.  That order was the result of an August 1999 petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by Ly. 

Court of Appeals Limits Mandatory Detention

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October 9, 2014
Court of Appeals Limits Mandatory Detention On October 6, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued a decision in Castañeda v. Souza that greatly limits the ability of Immigration & Customs Enforcement to subject individuals to mandatory detention during their removal proceedings.  In Castañeda, the First Circuit interpreted the not very confusing language “when the alien is released” and rejected the Board of Immigration Appeals’ formulation, articulated in Matter of Rojas that the “when released” means “any time after release. 

An Open Letter to Rep. Spencer Bachus

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March 21, 2013
  Dear Congressman Bachus, Thank you very much for speaking out about the overuse of detention by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) in civil proceedings to determine the removability of individuals in the U.S.  By stating and asking “it looks to me like there is an overuse of detention by this administration.  If these people are not safety risks . . . why are we detaining them?,

Benach Collopy Submits Brief in Mandatory Detention Case

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February 21, 2013
Earlier this month, Benach Collopy authored a brief on behalf of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in the case of Michael Sylvain v. Attorney General before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  In Sylvain, the court must decide whether the Immigration & Nationality Act (INA) requires the detention of individuals convicted of certain offenses regardless of how long it has been since they were released from criminal custody.

Hey FAU! Drop GEO!

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February 20, 2013
Hey FAU! Drop GEO! Yesterday, after receiving a gift of $6 million, Florida Atlantic University announced that it was renaming its stadium “The Geo Group Stadium,” after the for-profit prison company, best known for operating detention facilities on behalf of Immigration & Customs Enforcement.  It is remarkable that any university would name a stadium after a prison company, but simply stunning that Florida Atlantic University, which sits in South Florida, a community that has been decimated by the overuse of civil immigration, would be so tone deaf as to think this was a good idea. 

The Immigration Industrial Complex

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January 9, 2013
The Immigration Industrial Complex The Migration Policy Institute recently released a study documenting that the U.S. government spent $18 billion on immigration enforcement, dwarfing the $14 million spent on other federal law enforcement agencies. The FBI, the DEA and the ATF, combined, received $14 billion.  Immigration & Customs Enforcement’s budget, alone, is $6 billion.  Something is seriously out of whack here. None of this is surprising to immigration attorneys.  ICE runs a gulag archipelago of detention centers across the country, holding immigrants who have overstayed visas, entered without inspection, seek asylum, and  committed minor offenses. 

New Memo on Detainers- Will it be Followed?

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December 28, 2012
New Memo on Detainers- Will it be Followed? A persistent and fair criticism of the current administration is that while it has made grand pronouncements of focusing its enforcement efforts on violent criminals and threats to the national security, programs like 287(g) and Secure Communities have scooped far more benign immigrants in their overboard nets.  While the administration has put forward numerous memoranda and made extensive public statements about focusing limited resources on the dangerous and the recidivist immigration violators, the reality has been that, as a result of Secure Communities, immigrants without status and without serious criminal issues encountered by the police either due to a minor offense, while reporting a crime, or while the police look for another individual have been swept into the immigration dragnet, detained and deported. 

Indifference

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December 13, 2012
Indifference   It is very true that the immigration laws need a wholesale revision.  Congress needs to make substantial changes, regulations need to be re-written, precedent decisions scrapped and new guidance forthcoming.  But another change is needed and this change may the hardest of all.  It is a change of attitude within the agencies.  We have written in this space on multiple occasions about the hostility that elements within ICE have for their political leadership and the “culture of no” within CIS has been well-documented. 

Judge Grants Bond for Mandatorily Detained Client Under 236(c) – A Sweet Victory for Benach Collopy!

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August 21, 2012
This morning, we won bond for our client, who is mandatorily detained under 236(c) and hence, subject to mandatory detention. The Government lawyer, flanked by his supervisor, strenuously contended that mandatory is mandatory, but the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) found it in his jurisdiction to grant bond due to our creative lawyering and excellent grasp of recent case law. Most attorneys never challenge the detention of a client under 236(c).