The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against a policy that allows the indefinite detention of migrants who are seeking asylum.
The decision will keep a lower court’s decision to grant asylum seekers the right to a bond hearing in place.
In the previous ruling, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman stated that it is unconstitutional to indefinitely detain non-citizens. The appeals court seemed to agree, saying that the Department of Justice did not make a “persuasive showing that it will suffer irreparable harm if it is required to provide bond hearings pending the outcome of this appeal in the same way it had done for several years.”
According to a report from The Hill, the appeals court “did not allow a district judge’s order requiring the government to release some asylum-seekers within a certain amount of time after immigration proceedings begin, saying it ‘would impose short-term hardship for the government and its immigration system.’”
The decision is in regards to a directive from Attorney General William Barr in April, saying that immigration judges are not to release migrants on bail. The policy also left open the ability for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to re-detain migrants who were previously released on bond.
“The Government’s unwillingness to unconditionally assert that Plaintiffs will not be re-detained means that the specter of re-detention looms and these Plaintiffs and many members of their class face the real and imminent threat of bondless and indefinite detention …,” Judge Pechman said in the initial ruling.
The Ninth Circuit Court notoriously leans to the left and has repeatedly shut down Trump’s policies.
