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New Jersey District Court Rules on Mandatory Detention Immigration Issue

On Behalf of | Nov 11, 2012 | Detention Facilities, Immigration Court |

Not just too long ago, the United States District Court ruled that the Petitioner in a Habeas Action that he was entitled to a Individual Bond Hearing after ICE took the person into custody years later. Just again recently, New Jersey District Court Joel Pisano ruled that mandatory detention did not apply when the Petitioner was taken into custody approximately ten years after he was sentenced to a conditional discharge in New York (for which he was never incarcerated). The Court held that the plain language of the statute requires DHS to take custody of an alien who is subject to mandatory detention immediately when that person is released from custody. In this particular case, the Petitioner 1) was never released from criminal custody and 2) he certainly was not detained immediately: in fact, there was a ten year gap between his criminal case and detention. The Court therefore held that the terms of his pre-removal release are governed not by 8 USC 1226 (C ) (1)–the mandatory detention rules–but rather 8 USC 1226 (a), which allows release on bond. While this case is not precedential, it nevertheless points in the right direction and represents a clear, no-nonsense interpretation of what is essentially unambiguous.

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