Opinion ID: 612089
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Post-Imprisonment Detention Pending Deportation

Text: 34 The district court noted that the INS normally files a detainer with the Bureau of Prisons during the last month of a deportable alien's imprisonment and that this can result in his being further incarcerated in a deportation detention facility while deportation proceedings are conducted. This additional period of incarceration, the district court found, can average 59 days. Quite apart from the fact that an average delay of 59 days seems a weak basis for the eight-month reduction granted here, we have difficulties with this as a basis for departure. 35 First, aliens who are to be deported for reasons other than the commission of crimes may be detained pending their deportation. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(1) (Pending a determination of deportation in the case of any alien ..., such alien may, upon warrant of the Attorney General, be arrested and taken into custody.... [A]ny such alien taken into custody may, in the discretion of the Attorney General and pending such final determination of deportability, (A) be continued in custody; or (B) be released under bond ...; or (C) be released on conditional parole.). Some, albeit not most, aliens who are to be deported for reasons other than conviction of a crime are indeed detained pending deportation. See United States General Accounting Office, Immigration Control: Immigration Policies Affect INS Detention Efforts 28-29 (1992) (majority of such aliens not detained unless it is determined that they pose a danger to public safety or national security or are likely to abscond); see also Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228, 235, 16 S.Ct. 977, 980, 41 L.Ed. 140 (1896) (Proceedings to ... expel would be vain if those accused could not be held in custody ... while arrangements were being made for their deportation.). 36 Since a deportable alien may be detained though he has not been convicted of a crime, a detention that occurs pending deportation following a convicted alien's completion of his term of imprisonment should not be viewed as a detention resulting solely from his conviction. Nor should it be viewed as part and parcel of the punishment for his criminal offense. Rather, it is part of a penalty that has traditionally been termed civil rather than punitive, see, e.g., Abel v. United States, 362 U.S. 217, 237, 80 S.Ct. 683, 696, 4 L.Ed.2d 668 (1960) (deportation proceedings not subject to the constitutional safeguards that would be required for criminal prosecutions); United States v. Koziel, 954 F.2d 831, 835 (2d Cir.1992) (deportation is a civil penalty) (emphasis in original). Hence, in comparing the punishments meted out to an alien and to a citizen, respectively, it is inapt to measure the latter's sentence against the former's sentence plus deportation-related detention. 37 Second, [i]n the case of an alien who is convicted of an offense which makes the alien subject to deportation, the Attorney General is directed to begin any deportation proceeding as expeditiously as possible after the date of conviction. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(i) (1988). Any unnecessary delay in the initiation of deportation proceedings for the convicted alien is, at a minimum, contrary to the spirit of the law. Anticipatory relief from a possible delay, however, by way of a downward departure in sentencing is speculative and inappropriate. Remedy for such a delay may more appropriately be sought either by writ of habeas corpus, see id. § 1252(c) (1988), or by a lawsuit challenging the pertinent policies and practices of the Attorney General.