Source: http://nj.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20190805_0002053.DNJ.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2020-02-26 14:19:06
Document Index: 25877327

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2241', '§ 2241', '§ 2', '§ 1226', '§ 1226', '§ 2241', '§ 2241', '§ 2241', '§ 1226', '§ 1226', '§ 1226', '§ 1226', '§ 1226', '§ 1231', '§ 1231', '§ 1226', '§ 1226', '§ 1226', '§ 1226']

FindACase™ | Aneury R.T.M. v. Green
Aneury R.T.M. v. Green
ANEURY R. T. M., Petitioner,
Presently before the Court is Petitioner's § 2241 habeas corpus petition challenging his ongoing immigration detention since March 16, 2018 (the “§ 2241 Petition”). (DE 1.) By way of that pleading, Petitioner requests that this Court order “a constitutionally adequate, individualized [bond] hearing before an impartial adjudicator at which the Government bears the burden of establishing that Petitioner's continued detention is justified[.]” (Id. at 12.) For the reasons stated herein, the petition is granted.
Petitioner is a native and citizen of the Dominican Republic. (See, e.g., DE 5-1 at Ex. A.) He arrived in the United States on June 12, 1996 as a lawful permanent resident. (Id.) On March 4, 2016, Petitioner was convicted in New Jersey Superior Court of robbery, in violation of N.J.S.A. § 2C:15-1A(2). (Id.) On March 16, 2018, at the completion of Petitioner's sentence for that conviction, he was taken into custody by the United States Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”). (Id. at Ex. E.) Petitioner has been detained by immigration authorities ever since. At the outset, it bears noting that Petitioner has, at all times throughout this period, been held pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c); this is due to his robbery conviction and in light of the fact that he has never been subject to a “final” order of removal. See Leslie v. Att'y Gen., 678 F.3d 265, 268-270 (3d Cir. 2012).
Respondent (hereinafter, the “Government”) concedes that Petitioner has never received a bond hearing during the pendency of his “mandatory detention under § 1226(c)[.]” (See, e.g., DE 5 at 5.) The record likewise reflects that Petitioner's lone request for a custody redetermination on the mandatory nature of his detention, e.g., that he is in fact eligible to be released on bond, was denied by Immigration Judge (“IJ”) Mirlande Tadal May 3, 2018. (DE 5-1 at Ex. G.)
Petitioner filed his § 2241 Petition on or about October 12, 2018. (DE 1.) The Government filed its relevant answer to the same on December 3, 2018. (DE 5.) Petitioner filed his formal reply on December 28, 2018 (at DE 6), followed by additional supplemental filings on January 10, 2019 (at DE 7), April 29, 2019 (at DE 9), and July 1, 2019 (at DE 10). The Government filed a sur-reply responding to the December 28th and January 10th filings on January 30, 2019. (DE 8.)
Under 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c), habeas relief may be extended to an immigration detainee who “is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” Id. at § 2241(c)(3). As noted, Petitioner has, since March 16, 2018, been subject to mandatory detention pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c).[1] At issue here is whether Petitioner's 16-plus months of immigration detention[2] has become unreasonably prolonged as to render that detention unconstitutional.
The Third Circuit again applied Diop's reasonableness requirement in Chavez-Alvarez v. Warden York Cty. Prison, 783 F.3d 469 (3d Cir. 2015). There, the circuit court held that because the petitioner's year-long detention under § 1226(c) had become unreasonable, he was entitled to a bond hearing where the government would bear the burden of “produc[ing] individualized evidence that Chavez-Alvarez's continued detention was or is necessary.” Chavez-Alvarez, 783 F.3d at 474, 478. As in Diop, that conclusion resulted from the Third Circuit's “use of a balancing framework [that] makes any determination on reasonableness highly fact-specific.” Id. at 474.
The Supreme Court's decision in Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S.Ct. 830 (2018), however, overruled Diop's statutory interpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c). Jennings rejected the conclusion that § 1226(c) contains an implicit reasonableness limitation. Id. at 846-47. The Supreme Court noted that in Demore, it distinguished § 1226(c) from § 1231(a)(6) (the statute at issue in Zadvydas). See Id. at 846. While detention under § 1231(a)(6) lacks a “definite termination point, ” § 1226(c) authorizes detention only until the conclusion of removal proceedings. Id. (quoting Demore, 538 U.S. at 529). Jennings holds that “§ 1226(c) mandates detention of any alien falling within its scope and that detention may end prior to the conclusion of removal proceedings only if the alien is released for witness-protection purposes.” Id. at 847 (internal quotation marks omitted). Jennings, however, did not address the constitutionality of § 1226(c); the Supreme Court instead remanded to the Ninth Circuit to decide that question in the first instance. Id. at 851. Jennings therefore, says the Third Circuit, “[does] not call into question [its] constitutional holding in Diop that detention under § 1226(c) may violate due process if unreasonably long.” Borbot v. Warden Hudson Cty. Corr. Facility, 906 F.3d 274, 277-78 (2018).
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In sum, the constitutional holdings of Diop and Chavez-Alvarez call for a &ldquo;fact-dependent inquiry requiring an assessment of all of the circumstances of any given case, &rdquo; to determine whether detention without an individualized hearing is unreasonable. Diop, 656 F.3d at 234; see also Chavez-Alvarez, 783 F.3d at 475 n. 7 (explaining &ldquo;the highly fact-specific nature&rdquo; of the balancing framework). Under this approach, district courts must determine whether an individual&#39;s detention has crossed the &ldquo;reasonableness&rdquo; threshold, thus entitling him to a bond hearing. Again, the reasonableness of detention depends on the facts of the detainee&#39;s individual case. See Diop, 656 F.3d at 232-33 (noting that the inquiry into whether detention has become unreasonable &ldquo;will necessarily be a fact-dependent inquiry that will vary depending on individual circumstances&rdquo; and &ldquo;declin[ing] to establish a universal point at which detention will always be considered unreasonable&rdquo;). And at the point detention becomes unreasonable, there must be a bond hearing &ldquo;at which the Government bears the burden of proving that continued detention is necessary to fulfill the purposes of the detention statute.&rdquo; Id. at 233. In that respect, the Third Circuit held in Chavez-Alvarez that, in the absence of bad faith by the criminal alien, [3] his or her detention without a bond hearing will often become ...