This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case involving the indefinite detention of permanent residents. In 1996, Congress passed new laws dealing with detention and deportation of noncitizens who have committed crimes in the US. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that people ordered deported, but who cannot be deported because their countries of nationality refused to accept them cannot be indefinitely detained, and must be provided the opportunity to demonstrate that they deserve to be released.

The current case, involving Hyung Joon Kim, a permanent resident from South Korea, addresses whether the INS can detain permanent residents who have not yet been ordered deported without providing them a bond hearing to determine whether they are a flight risk or a threat to the community. A lower court judge found Kim’s detention unconstitutional and ordered the INS to grant a bond hearing, but the INS simply released him on $50,000 bond without a hearing, a fact that Kim’s attorneys say shows that the government does not consider him either a danger or a flight risk.

At the hearing, government lawyers argued that the case is about public safety and security, and that those being detained have been convicted of crimes that mean they no longer have the right to live in the US. At least two members of the court seemed to agree with the government’s position. Justice Antonin Scalia called the detention law not “terribly unreasonable,” and Chief Justice William Rhenquist said the law was valid in light of evidence that showed more than 20 percent of those released had failed to appear for deportation proceedings.

Lawyers for Kim argued that while some people the government seeks to deport might be dangerous and fail to appear for hearings, this is not the case for all of them, and that there should therefore be individual hearings to determine whether a person should be released. They also added that not everyone the government places in deportation proceedings ends up being ordered deported.

A decision is expected sometime this summer.