A foreign national living in the U.S., including a legal permanent resident, is vulnerable to being placed in removal proceedings for being inadmissible or deportable as defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act. Among the most common reasons for being arrested by the DHS are being convicted of a crime, applying for immigration benefits that are denied, violating one’s status, or requesting admission to the U.S. without valid documents.
Removal proceedings are initiated with a charging document called a Notice to Appear. Among other information, the Notice to Appear contains the formal charges, the time and place of the hearing, and the consequences for failing to appear. The Notice to Appear is only required to give a 10-day notice of the initial hearing. However, since proceedings begin when the notice is filed in court and not when it is served, a foreign national who receives a Notice to Appear may find that he or she has fewer than 10 days to prepare.
A foreign national may be kept in custody (if subject to mandatory detention), released under a bond of at least $1,500, or released on conditional parole into the community. Bond hearings occur before the removal hearing and are usually scheduled within days of the arrest, providing little time to prepare and present documentary evidence to the immigration judge that bond should be granted. Reasons for a judge to agree to bond can include proof of the foreign national’s health issues, having family members who are U.S. citizens, hardships to those family members, etc. The bond hearing is separate from the individual’s removal proceedings, and its purpose is exclusively to determine whether the foreign national should be held in custody or released while removal proceedings are ongoing.