SUPREME COURT TO HEAR INDEFINITE DETENTION CASE

This week the Supreme Court agreed to hear appeals in two cases involving indefinite detention of aliens awaiting deportation.  Part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 gave the INS the power to detain people convicted of certain crimes during their deportation proceedings and in some cases, after they have received a final deportation order.  In most cases this is seldom more than a few days.  However, nationals from some countries have spent years in detention because their home countries will not accept deportees from the US.

This is the situation that faces Kim Ho Ma, a Cambodian.  There is no deportation agreement between the US and Cambodia, meaning it does not appear possible that Ma will be deported.  On appeal, the Ninth Circuit ruled that because it did not appear the INS would be able to effect his deportation he could not be held more than 90 days after the deportation order became final.  We discussed this case in our bulletin at http://www.visalaw.com/00apr3/14apr300.html, and the text of the case is available online at http://laws.findlaw.com/9TH/9935976.html.

Kestutis Zadvydas, the detainee in the other case the Supreme Court will hear, is stateless.  He was born in 1948 in an American administered region of Germany that later became part of the Soviet Union, and then Lithuania.  Neither Germany or Lithuania would accept him, saying he was not a citizen.  The Fifth Circuit ruled that the INS could detain him until it could secure his deportation.  We discussed this case in our bulletin at http://www.visalaw.com/99sep/29sep99.html, and the text of the case is available online at http://caselaw.findlaw.com/cgi-moses/getcase.pl?court=5th&navby=case&no=9731345cv0.

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