 ATTORNEY GENERAL SEEKS WAYS TO CONTINUE DETENTION OF IMMIGRANTS DESPITE SUPREME COURT RULING
Last month the Supreme Court ruled that immigrants who could not be deported could not be detained by the INS for more than six months. Now Attorney General John Ashcroft is examining ways to ensure that these immigrants are deported. The problem of indefinite detention arose because the 1996 immigration law calls for deportees convicted of aggravated felonies to be detained if they cannot be deported, and a number of countries do not have agreements with the US that would allow for the deportation.
This week Ashcroft threatened to retaliate against countries that will not accept deportees from the US. He said that he will ask Secretary of State Colin Powell to stop issuing visas to citizens of those countries, which include Cuba, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, although Ashcroft did not make specific mention of any country. He also said that he would take steps to ensure the detainees are not released, including seeing if they have state sentences that have not been served, and in some cases imposing additional federal charges.
While the INS stresses that many of the indefinite detainees were convicted of violent offenses, including murder and sexual offenses, under the expanded definition of aggravated felony, many people convicted of minor offenses can be and are held in detention. An estimated 3,000 people were being held in indefinite detention at the time of the Supreme Court ruling.
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