Long detention doesn't warrant bond hearing for immigrants, U.S. court rules

Immigrants who are detained in the U.S. for lengthy periods of time while awaiting deportation proceedings do not have a constitutional right to a hearing on whether they should be released on bond, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Monday. Deepening an existing split among appeals courts, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 ruling said Aroldo Rodriguez Diaz, an El Salvadoran citizen with gang ties and an extensive criminal record, was not entitled to a bond hearing after spending 14 months in a detention center. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Report an ad Immigrants have a right to a bond hearing when they are detained, but courts have split over whether they are entitled to additional hearings after spending months in detention. article-prompt-devices Register for free to Reuters and know the full story An immigration judge in 2020 had released Rodriguez on a $10,000 bond after a federal judge in Oakland, California said he had a due process right to a bond hearing because of his prolonged detention. Rodriguez had been detained by immigration officials in late 2018 after he was convicted of domestic violence and spent about nine months in jail, and was initially denied bond. The 9th Circuit majority on Monday said the government's interest in enforcing U.S. immigration laws and ensuring Rodriguez showed up at deportation hearings outweighed any potential deprivation of his personal liberty. Due process "does not mandate procedures that reduce the risk of erroneous deprivation to zero, a result that is beyond grasp," wrote Circuit Judge Daniel Bress, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Report an ad Bress was joined by Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay, who is also a Trump appointee. The ruling clashed with decisions from the Boston-based 1st Circuit and New York-based 2nd Circuit that said immigrants who had respectively spent 10 and 15 months in detention had a right to bond hearings. The 3rd and 4th Circuits, respectively based in Philadelphia and Virginia, have ruled the other way. Circuit Judge Kim Wardlaw, who was appointed by Democratic former President Bill Clinton to the 9th Circuit, dissented on Monday. Wardlaw said that once Rodriguez had been detained for more than six months, the risk that prolonged detention posed to his liberty outweighed the government's interests. She said the fact that an immigration judge released Rodriguez on bond showed that the government could not justify keeping him detained. The case is Rodriguez Diaz v. Garland, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 20-16245. For Rodriguez Diaz: Piper Akol of the Central American Resource Center of Northern California For the government: Sarah Wilson of the U.S. Department of Justice For more information, visit us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/index.html.