U.S. District Judge
S.D. IL
Galen-Reyes v. Acoff, 05-14-20, S.D. IL, U.S. District Judge Staci Yandle
KEY QUOTE:
For the foregoing reasons, in the absence of clear and convincing evidence that his release would endanger the public or that he is a flight risk, coupled with the known risks associated with the presence of COVID-19 at Pulaski, this Court concludes that Galan-Reyes’ continued indefinite detention violates his Fifth Amendment right to due process. The government’s interests in continuing his detention must therefore yield to his liberty and safety interests.6
Disposition
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Petition for writ of habeas corpus is GRANTED.
Respondents are ORDERED to IMMEDIATELY RELEASE Omar Galan-Reyes, pursuant to the following conditions:
1. Petitioner will reside at a certain residence, will provide his address and telephone contact information to Respondents, and will quarantine there for at least the first 14 days of his release;
2. If Department of Homeland Security (DHS) determines that Petitioner is an appropriate candidate for Alternatives to Detention (ATD), then Petitioner will comply with DHS instructions as to any ATD conditions;
3. Petitioner will comply with national, state, and local guidance regarding staying at home, sheltering in place, and social distancing and shall be placed on home detention;
4. The Court’s order for release from detention shall be revoked should Petitioner fail to comply with this order of release;
5. This Order does not prevent Respondents from taking Petitioner back into custody should Petitioner commit any crimes that render him a threat to public safety or otherwise violate the terms of release;
6. Petitioner will be transported from Pulaski County Detention Center to his home by identified third persons;
7. Petitioner will not violate any federal, state, or local laws; and
8. At the discretion of DHS and/or ICE, to enforce the above restrictions, Petitioner’s whereabouts will be monitored by telephonic and/or electronic and/or GPS monitoring and/or location verification system and/or an automated identification system.
The Clerk of Court is DIRECTED to close this case and enter judgment accordingly.6 In light of the Court’s conclusion on Petitioner’s due process claim, it is not necessary to address his Administrative Procedures Act claim.
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Many thanks to Dan Kowalski over at LexisNexis for passing this along. And congrats to NDPA members A. Ross Cunningham, Esquire, and Jake Briskman, Esquire, for their representation of the prisoner rotting in the New American Gulag (“NAG”) in this case!
This decision reads like an indictment of the entire badly failed and fundamentally unfair DHS Enforcement and Immigration Court systems as mismanaged, weaponized, and politicized by the Trump regime Politicos and their toadies:
- Abuse of detention system by detaining non-dangerous individuals who are not flight risks;
- Uselessness of bond determinations by Immigration Judges who are functioning like enforcement officers, not independent judicial decision-makers;
- Extraordinarily poor judgment by DHS Detention officials;
- Delays caused by backlogged dockets driven by failure of DHS Enforcement to exercise prioritization and reasonable prosecutorial discretion compounded by the Immigration Judges who lack the authority, and in some cases the will, to control their dockets — dockets structured by politicos for political, rather than practical or legal, reasons (see, e.g., “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” or “ADR”);
- A dangerously useless BIA that fails to set reasonable national bond criteria and fails to properly and competently consider Due Process interests in bond cases;
- The importance of placing the burden of proof in bond cases where it constitutionally belongs: on DHS, rather than on the individual as is done in Immigration Court;
- In this case, the US District Judge had to do the careful analytical work of individual decision making that should have been done by the Immigration Court, and which the Immigration Court should have, but has failed to, require DHS to adopt;
- Leaving the big question: Why have Immigration Courts at all if the meaningful work has to be done by the U.S. Courts and U.S. Magistrates?
- Why not “cut out the useless middleman” and just have U.S. Magistrate Judges under the supervision of U.S. District Judges conduct all removal and bond proceedings in accordance with the law, Due Process, and the Eighth Amendment until Congress replaces the current constitutionally flawed Immigration Courts with an independent immigration judiciary that can do the job and that functions as a “real court” rather than an arm of DHS Enforcement thinly disguised as a “court?”
Due Process Forever!
PWS
05-15-20