WASHINGTON _ The Supreme Court on Tuesday strengthened the Trump administration's power to hold immigrants in jail for months or years as they fight deportation, ruling federal law gives these detainees no right to a bail hearing or chance to go free.
In the 5-3 decision, the court's majority found that federal law says immigrants who face deportation "shall be detained" while their cases are being considered. The court's conservatives rejected the view of federal judges in California who said detained immigrants have a right to a bail hearing after six months in jail.
The ruling is a setback, but not final defeat, for immigrants' rights activists in Los Angeles who brought a class-action suit on behalf of people who are arrested and held for possible deportation. They said many of these immigrants eventually win their cases, but only after they've spent a year or more in jail. And if they could show they were not a danger to the community or likely to flee, they had a right to go free, according to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., speaking for the high court, said the law does not call for bail hearings, and the 9th Circuit had no authority to order them.
But the justices did not rule on whether the Constitution gives detained immigrants a right to a hearing, and it sent the case back to California for that issue to be decided.
ACLU attorney Ahilan Arulanantham said he would look forward to going back to the lower courts to show that bail hearings are required by the Constitution.
