On Monday the Supreme Court refused to consider when the government can indefinitely detain illegal immigrants caught at the borders in a case involving Mariel Boatlift, who fled Cuba in 1980.

In Snyder V Rosales-Garcia, the 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that there must be a reasonable time limitation on the detention of those aliens whose home countries refused to take them back.  The American Civil Liberties Union, representing the two refugees in this case, mentioned one spent four years in immigration custody and another was in custody nearly 15 years because the government has nowhere to send them.

The Washington Legal Foundation and others groups urged the court to overturn the appeals court ruling. The lower court “has essentially held that the federal government is powerless to prevent foreign country from dumping all of its undesirable citizens on our shores and then refusing to take then back,” said attorney Daniel Popeo.

The Court refused to consider the follow-up case to a 2001 immigration ruling involving legal immigrants that said immigrant criminals with no country to accept them cannot be jailed indefinitely. The latest case includes people who were trying to enter the country illegally.

In a second immigration case, the court also turned away a Bush administration appeal that asked when an immigrant who misses a deportation could challenge the outcome.