C’mon now!
(Let’s lock the door and throw away the key now)
(shom-dooby-dom, dooby-dom-dom)
— Jay and the Americans,
“Let’s Lock the Door (And Throw Away the Key),” 1965
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Johnson v. Ortega-Martinez
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-896_2135.pdf
SYLLABUS BY COURT STAFF:
Syllabus
JOHNSON, ACTING DIRECTOR OF U. S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, ET AL. v. ARTEAGA-MARTINEZ
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 19–896. Argued January 11, 2022—Decided June 13, 2022
Respondent Antonio Arteaga-Martinez is a citizen of Mexico who was re- moved in July 2012 and reentered the United States in September 2012. U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a warrant for Arteaga-Martinez’s arrest in 2018. ICE reinstated Arte- aga-Martinez’s earlier removal order and detained him pursuant to its authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act. See 8 U. S. C. §1231(a). Arteaga-Martinez applied for withholding of removal under §1231(b)(3), as well as relief under regulations implementing the Con- vention Against Torture, based on his fear that he would be persecuted or tortured if he returned to Mexico. An asylum officer determined he had established a reasonable fear of persecution or torture, and the Department of Homeland Security referred him for withholding-only proceedings before an immigration judge.
After being detained for four months, Arteaga-Martinez filed a peti- tion for a writ of habeas corpus in District Court challenging, on both statutory and constitutional grounds, his continued detention without a bond hearing. The Government conceded that Arteaga-Martinez would be entitled to a bond hearing after six months of detention based on circuit precedent holding that a noncitizen facing prolonged deten- tion under §1231(a)(6) is entitled by statute to a bond hearing before an immigration judge and must be released unless the Government establishes, by clear and convincing evidence, that the noncitizen poses a risk of flight or a danger to the community. The District Court granted relief on Arteaga-Martinez’s statutory claim and ordered the Government to provide Arteaga-Martinez a bond hearing. The Third Circuit summarily affirmed. At the bond hearing, the Immigration
2 JOHNSON v. ARTEAGA-MARTINEZ Syllabus
Judge considered Arteaga-Martinez’s flight risk and dangerousness and ultimately authorized his release pending resolution of his appli- cation for withholding of removal.
Held: Section 1231(a)(6) does not require the Government to provide noncitizens detained for six months with bond hearings in which the Government bears the burden of proving, by clear and convincing evi- dence, that a noncitizen poses a flight risk or a danger to the commu- nity. Pp. 4–10.
(a) Section 1231(a)(6) cannot be read to require the hearing proce- dures imposed below. After the entry of a final order of removal against a noncitizen, the Government generally must secure the noncitizen’s removal during a 90-day removal period, during which the Government “shall” detain the noncitizen. 8 U. S. C. §§1231(a)(1), (2). Beyond the removal period, §1231(a)(6) defines four categories of noncitizens who “may be detained . . . and, if released, shall be subject to [certain] terms of supervision.” There is no plausible construction of the text of §1231(a)(6) that requires the Government to provide bond hearings with the procedures mandated by the Third Circuit. The statute says nothing about bond hearings before immigration judges or burdens of proof, nor does it provide any other indication that such procedures are required. Faithfully applying precedent, the Court cannot discern the bond hearing procedures required below from §1231(a)(6)’s text. Pp. 4–6.
(b) Arteaga-Martinez argues that §1231(a)(6)’s references to flight risk, dangerousness, and terms of supervision, support the relief or- dered below. Similarly, respondents in the companion case, see Gar- land v. Gonzalez, 594 U. S. ___, analogize the text of §1231(a)(6) to that of 8 U. S. C. §1226(a), noting that noncitizens detained under §1226(a) have long received bond hearings at the outset of detention. Assuming without deciding that an express statutory reference to “bond” (as in §1226(a)) might be read to require an initial bond hearing, §1231(a)(6) contains no such reference, and §1231(a)(6)’s oblique reference to terms of supervision does not suffice. The parties agree that the Gov- ernment possesses discretion to provide bond hearings under §1231(a)(6) or otherwise, but this Court cannot say the statute re- quires them.
Finally, Arteaga-Martinez argues that Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U. S. 678, which identified ambiguity in §1231(a)(6)’s permissive language, supports a view that §1231(a)(6) implicitly incorporates the specific bond hearing requirements and procedures imposed by the Court of Appeals. In Zadvydas, this Court construed §1231(a)(6) “in light of the Constitution’s demands” and determined that §1231(a)(6) “does not permit indefinite detention” but instead “limits an alien’s post-re- moval-period detention to a period reasonably necessary to bring about
Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022) 3 Syllabus
that alien’s removal from the United States.” 533 U. S., at 689. The bond hearing requirements articulated by the Third Circuit, however, reach substantially beyond the limitation on detention authority Zadvydas recognized. Zadvydas does not require, and Jennings v. Ro- driguez, 583 U. S. ___, does not permit, the Third Circuit’s application of the canon of constitutional avoidance. Pp. 6–8.
(c) Constitutional challenges to prolonged detention under §1231(a)(6) were not addressed below, in part because those courts read §1231(a)(6) to require a bond hearing. Arteaga-Martinez’s alter- native theory that he is presumptively entitled to release under Zadvydas also was not addressed below. The Court leaves these argu- ments for the lower courts to consider in the first instance. See Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709, 718, n. 7. Pp. 8–10.
Reversed and remanded.
SOTOMAYOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, ALITO, KAGAN, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which GORSUCH, J., joined as to Part I. BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
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I suppose the only good news here is:
- The Constitutional issue remains viable (but, don’t hold your breath); and
- Nobody else joined Thomas’s astounding, anti-historical, anti-
American bogus arguments on stripping immigrants of all due process rights and leaving their fate entirely in the hands of politicos.
Yet, the fact that an individual with views as outrageous, legally and morally wrong, and deeply anti-American as Thomas sits on our highest Court says something is seriously wrong with our justice system and our democracy.
Also outrageously, Thomas called for the overruling of Zadvydas v. Davis, an important case that prevents the Government from subjecting certain deportable, but unremovable, individuals to lifetime “civil imprisonment and punishment” in the “New American Gulag.”
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
06-13-22