Opinion ID: 3213240
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: trigger point

Text: Courts throughout the country have adopted one of two general approaches for evaluating when a criminal alien’s due process rights are violated by mandatory civil detention without a bond hearing under § 1226(c). We refer to these as the “bright-line” and “case-by-case” approaches. 30 Case: 14-11421 Date Filed: 06/15/2016 Page: 31 of 79 The Second and Ninth Circuits use the bright-line approach. The Ninth Circuit requires that, at the six-month mark, the government shall provide all criminal aliens detained under § 1226(c) with a bond hearing. See Rodriguez v. Robbins, 804 F.3d 1060, 1065, 1079-81 (9th Cir. 2015), petition for cert. filed sub. nom., Jennings v. Rodriguez, 84 U.S.L.W. 3562 (U.S. Mar. 25, 2016) (No. 151204). The Second Circuit also adopted the six-month rule, reasoning that it eliminates “inconsistency and confusion” and ensures that “similarly situated detainees receive similar treatment.” Lora, 804 F.3d at 614-16. At the bond hearing stage, the Ninth Circuit requires the government to “prove by clear and convincing evidence that [a criminal] alien is a flight risk or a danger to the community to justify denial of bond.” Rodriguez, 804 F.3d at 1087 (quotation marks omitted). The Second Circuit requires the government, at the bond hearing before an IJ, to carry the burden of proof to establish by clear and convincing evidence that the criminal alien is a flight risk or a danger to the community. Lora, 804 F.3d at 616. For the case-by-case approach, we look to the First, Third, and Sixth Circuits, which have rejected a bright-line rule and held that whether detention of a criminal alien has become unreasonable depends on the factual circumstances of the case. Those courts have held that, because each criminal alien’s removal proceedings raises a unique set of facts and issues, making the length of the 31 Case: 14-11421 Date Filed: 06/15/2016 Page: 32 of 79 proceedings unpredictable, it would be unwise to set a universal or bright-line timeline for when mandatory detention shifts from being reasonable to unreasonable. See Reid, 819 F.3d at 496 (rejecting a bright-line six-month rule on multiple grounds, including the fact that the Zadvydas six-month period “was predicated on there being no foreseeable hope of removal,” the detention was “potentially permanent,” and “there were simply no metrics by which to judge just how much longer towards eternity could be considered ‘reasonable,’” warranting a bright-line rule (quotation marks omitted)); Diop, 656 F.3d at 232-33 (noting that the inquiry into whether detention has become unreasonable “will necessarily be a fact-dependent inquiry that will vary depending on individual circumstances” and “declin[ing] to establish a universal point at which detention will always be considered unreasonable”); Ly, 351 F.3d at 271 (“A bright-line time limitation . . . would not be appropriate . . . . [C]ourts must examine the facts of each case[] to determine whether there has been unreasonable delay in concluding removal proceedings.”). These three circuit courts instruct that a criminal alien may file a § 2241 petition when he contends that his removal proceedings and continued civil detention without a bond hearing have become protracted and thus violate the Due Process Clause. See Reid, 819 F.3d at 498-99; Diop, 656 F.3d at 233, 235; Ly, 351 F.3d at 272-73. Then, a federal court, examining the individual circumstances of 32 Case: 14-11421 Date Filed: 06/15/2016 Page: 33 of 79 the case, will decide whether the criminal alien’s continued detention has become unreasonable. See Reid, 819 F.3d at 500-01; Diop, 656 F.3d at 234; Ly, 351 F.3d at 272-73. Under this configuration, if the district court grants the criminal alien’s § 2241 petition, it then orders the government to provide an opportunity for the alien to obtain bond. At that point, the Third Circuit shifts the burden of proof from the petitioner to the government. See Diop, 656 F.3d at 233. The Third Circuit ruled that there must be a bond hearing “at which the Government bears the burden of proving that continued detention is necessary to fulfill the purposes of the detention statute.” Id. The Sixth Circuit has not explicitly defined the mechanism by which the government must make an individualized bond determination; but, in Ly, it affirmed a district court order that directed the agency to hold a hearing. 351 F.3d at 266, 273. The First Circuit also affirmed a district court order directing the government to hold a bond hearing. Reid, 819 F.3d at 491-92. The First Circuit’s Reid decision contains the most extensive discussion of why an individualized case-by-case approach adheres more closely to the relevant legal precedent. The First Circuit reasoned that, “while the Second and Ninth Circuits claim to have read an implicit ‘reasonableness limitation’ into § 1226(c), we think it more accurate to say that they have simply read an implicit ‘six-month 33 Case: 14-11421 Date Filed: 06/15/2016 Page: 34 of 79 expiration’ into § 1226(c).” Id. at 497. The First Circuit viewed “Demore as implicitly foreclosing our ability to adopt a firm six-month rule” because “[i]n Demore, the Supreme Court declined to state any specific time limit in a case involving a detainee who had already been held for approximately six months.” Id. In addition, “[t]he Demore Court also briefly discussed facts specific to the detainee, such as his request for a continuance of his removal hearing.” Id. (citing Demore, 538 U.S. at 530-31 & n.15, 123 S. Ct. at 1721 & n.15). The First Circuit concluded that, “[t]aken together, Zadvydas, Demore, and the inherent nature of the ‘reasonableness’ inquiry weigh heavily against adopting a six-month presumption of unreasonableness.” Id. It added that the practical advantages of the bright-line approach are “persuasive justifications for legislative or administrative intervention, not judicial decree.” Id. at 498.
We join the First, Third, and Sixth Circuits and adopt the case-by-case approach. To begin with, “[r]easonableness, by its very nature, is a fact-dependent inquiry requiring an assessment of all of the circumstances of any given case.” Diop, 656 F.3d at 234. A bright-line approach strips away the essence of a reasonableness standard. For example, Justice Kennedy’s concurrence in Demore examined the factual specifics of the case at hand. It did not attempt to impose a one-size-fits-all 34 Case: 14-11421 Date Filed: 06/15/2016 Page: 35 of 79 solution. His concurrence indicated that there may be situations in which the government delays the removal proceedings and then continues to detain the alien for non-statutory purposes. See Demore, 538 U.S. at 532-33, 123 S. Ct. at 1722 (Kennedy, J., concurring). Turning to the facts of petitioner Demore’s case, his concurrence concluded that a court could not draw such an inference “from the circumstances of that case.” See id. at 533, 123 S. Ct. at 1726. Further, § 1226(c) does not come ready-made with a time cutoff the way § 1231 does, suggesting that a case-by-case approach is more appropriate in this context. Specifically, the § 1231 statute in Zadvydas already had a 90-day limitation, to which the Supreme Court appended another 90 days, creating a 6- month cutoff. In contrast, the § 1226(c) statute contains no time limitation at all on which to base a firm cutoff. In opposing a bright-line rule, the government also points out that, were we to impose a strict cutoff, a criminal alien could deliberately cause months of delays in the removal proceedings to obtain a bond hearing and then abscond and avoid removal altogether. Aliens in post-removal-period detention, on the other hand, do not have the opportunity to engage in such gamesmanship. In addition, the complex course of events during removal proceedings is markedly different from the limited nature of what must happen in the 90-day removal period. To implement the last discrete step of removal to another country, 35 Case: 14-11421 Date Filed: 06/15/2016 Page: 36 of 79 the government follows roughly the same process for each alien. It gathers travel documents and arranges for transportation. The government controls that removal process. The detained alien cannot go back home or anywhere without the government doing its job. The § 1231 statute gave the government 90 days, and the Supreme Court gave it 90 more, for a 6-month limit to accomplish this discrete task. But even then, as the First Circuit emphasized, the Supreme Court in Zadvydas did not actually adopt a six-month cutoff. As to this point, the First Circuit explained: The [Supreme] Court pointed out that not every alien to be removed would be released after six months. To the contrary, an alien may be held in confinement until it has been determined that there is no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future. If six months has passed and the alien had demonstrated no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future, then the government was required to respond with evidence sufficient to rebut that showing. If the government could demonstrate a reasonably foreseeable termination point, the detention continued. Reid, 819 F.3d at 496 (citations omitted) (quotation marks omitted). In contrast to the 90-day removal period, removal proceedings involve many more exigencies and the conduct of the criminal alien can equally affect the duration of that alien’s removal proceedings. Even though criminal aliens have aggravated felonies making them promptly removable, criminal aliens may apply for different forms of purely discretionary relief. Some ask for multiple 36 Case: 14-11421 Date Filed: 06/15/2016 Page: 37 of 79 continuances, some choose to file frivolous appeals while others do not, and each IJ has a docket with different demands. There is little consistency in the pace of immigration proceedings from case to case. This difference necessitates a different approach to detention of criminal aliens during removal proceedings—one flexible enough to account for the circumstances of each case. Critics of the case-by-case approach claim that the standard is too difficult for the federal courts to administer and creates inconsistencies in § 2241 proceedings. But federal courts have the institutional competence to make factspecific determinations, and they have great experience applying reasonableness standards.8 We agree with the First Circuit that the reasonableness standard adheres more closely to legal precedent, and the practical advantages of the brightline approach are “persuasive justifications for legislative or administration intervention, not judicial decree.” Id. at 498. This brings us to the nature of the reasonableness inquiry itself. C. Reasonableness Factors for the District Courts to Consider in § 2241 Cases 8 The constitutional principles at play here, of course, apply to the government’s conduct—detaining criminal aliens—whether a § 2241 petition is filed or only potentially forthcoming. The government is constitutionally obligated to follow the law, and the law under § 1226(c) now includes a temporal limitation against the unreasonably prolonged detention of a criminal alien without a bond hearing. The government does not need to wait for a § 2241 petition to be filed before affording an alien an opportunity to obtain bond. The government is already responsible for implementing the bond mechanism regulations for non-criminal aliens and is equipped to do the same in this context, at the point when the criminal alien’s continuous mandatory detention becomes unreasonably protracted. As explained infra, the criminal alien also can appeal the District Director’s initial bond determination to the IJ and BIA. 37 Case: 14-11421 Date Filed: 06/15/2016 Page: 38 of 79 As instructed by Zadvydas and Demore, we begin with the core principle that “the reasonableness of any given detention pursuant to § 1226(c) is a function of whether it is necessary to fulfill the purpose of the statute.” Diop, 656 F.3d at 234. Several factors should guide a district court in determining whether a particular criminal alien’s continued detention, as required by § 1226(c), is necessary to fulfilling Congress’s aims of removing criminal aliens while preventing flight and recidivism. First, one critical factor is the amount of time that the criminal alien has been in detention without a bond hearing. Given that Congress and the Supreme Court believed that most removal proceedings would be completed within five months, and the Supreme Court provided for a six-month rule in Zadvydas, “the constitutional case for continued detention without inquiry into its necessity becomes more and more suspect as detention continues past those thresholds.” See id. (emphasis added). Accordingly, there is little chance that a criminal alien’s detention is unreasonable until at least the six-month mark. Looking to the outer limit of reasonableness, we suggest that a criminal alien’s detention without a bond hearing may often become unreasonable by the one-year mark, depending on the facts of the case. See Chavez-Alvarez v. Warden York Cty. Prison, 783 F.3d 469, 478 (3d Cir. 2015) (“[B]eginning sometime after the six-month timeframe considered by Demore, and certainly by the time [the 38 Case: 14-11421 Date Filed: 06/15/2016 Page: 39 of 79 alien] had been detained for one year, the burdens to [the alien’s] liberties outweighed any justification for . . . detain[ing] him without bond to further the goals of the statute.”). The need for a bond inquiry is likely to arise in the sixmonth to one-year window, at which time a court must determine whether the purposes of the statute—preventing flight and criminal acts—are being fulfilled, and whether the government is incarcerating the alien for reasons other than risk of flight or dangerousness. See Demore, 538 U.S. at 532-33, 123 S. Ct. at 1722 (Kennedy, J., concurring). The government is not required to free automatically a criminal alien who obtains a bond hearing; but the government must at least afford the alien an individualized bond inquiry. A second factor in the reasonableness evaluation is why the removal proceedings have become protracted. Courts should consider whether the government or the criminal alien have failed to participate actively in the removal proceedings or sought continuances and filing extensions that delayed the case’s progress. See id. at 532, 123 S. Ct. at 1722 (Kennedy, J., concurring); Diop, 656 F.3d at 234; Ly, 351 F.3d at 272. Errors by the immigration court or the BIA that cause unnecessary delay are also relevant. See Leslie v. Att’y Gen. of the U.S., 678 F.3d 265, 269 (3d Cir. 2012); Diop, 656 F.3d at 234; Ly, 351 F.3d at 272; cf. Demore, 538 U.S. at 532, 123 S. Ct. at 1722 (Kennedy, J., concurring). 39 Case: 14-11421 Date Filed: 06/15/2016 Page: 40 of 79 We are not saying that aliens should be punished for pursuing avenues of relief and appeals. See Ly, 351 F.3d at 272 (“[A]ppeals and petitions for relief are to be expected as a natural part of the process. An alien who would not normally be subject to indefinite detention cannot be so detained merely because he seeks to explore avenues of relief that the law makes available to him.”). However, the district court may examine the record to determine whether the alien sought repeated or unnecessary continuances, or filed frivolous claims and appeals. See Diop, 656 F.3d at 234 (“[T]he reasonableness determination must take into account a given individual detainee’s need for more or less time . . . .”). Evidence that the alien acted in bad faith or sought to deliberately slow the proceedings in hopes of obtaining release cuts against the alien. See Chavez-Alvarez, 783 F.3d at 476; Ly, 351 F.3d at 272. Courts conducting this reasonableness analysis have considered three more factors, including: (3) whether it will be possible to remove the criminal alien after there is a final order of removal; (4) whether the alien’s civil immigration detention exceeds the time the alien spent in prison for the crime that rendered him removable; and (5) whether the facility for the civil immigration detention is meaningfully different from a penal institution for criminal detention. See ChavezAlvarez, 783 F.3d at 478; Ly, 351 F.3d at 271. The government has ready access to this type of information. 40 Case: 14-11421 Date Filed: 06/15/2016 Page: 41 of 79 Similarly, the First Circuit has listed these as factors a court might examine, inter alia: “the total length of the detention; the foreseeability of proceedings concluding in the near future (or the likely duration of future detention); the period of the detention compared to the criminal sentence; the promptness (or delay) of the immigration authorities or the detainee; and the likelihood that the proceedings will culminate in a final removal order.” Reid, 819 F.3d at 500. We agree with the First Circuit that “[t]here may be other factors that bear on the reasonableness of categorical detention, but we need not strain to develop an exhaustive taxonomy here. We note these factors only to help resolve the case before us and to provide guideposts for other courts conducting such a reasonableness review.” Id. at 501. Our list of factors is not exhaustive. The reasonableness inquiry is necessarily fact intensive, and the factors that should be considered will vary depending on the individual circumstances present in each case. See Diop, 656 F.3d at 232-33 (“At a certain point, continued detention becomes unreasonable . . . . This will necessarily be a fact-dependent inquiry that will vary depending on individual circumstances.”). In sum, § 2241 courts must consult the record and balance the government’s interest in continued detention against the criminal alien’s liberty interest, always seeking to determine whether the alien’s liberty interest has begun to outweigh “any justification for using presumptions to detain him without bond.” See 41 Case: 14-11421 Date Filed: 06/15/2016 Page: 42 of 79 Chavez-Alvarez, 783 F.3d at 478. If the balance tips in the alien’s favor, the district court must grant the § 2241 habeas petition and order the government to afford the criminal alien an individualized bond inquiry.