Opinion ID: 858320
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: may release the alien on--

Text: (A) bond of at least $1,500 with security approved by, and containing conditions prescribed by, the Attorney General; or (B) conditional parole; but (3) may not provide the alien with work authorization 14 RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS § 1226(c)’s mandatory detention provisions apply only until the BIA affirms a removal order, at which point the government’s authority to detain the alien shifts to § 1226(a), where it remains until “we have rejected his final petition for review or his time to seek such review expires.” Id. Having concluded that Casas’ continued detention was “authorized” under § 1226(a), we observed that “[t]here is a difference between detention being authorized and being necessary as to any particular person,” and thus held “that the government may not detain a legal permanent resident such as Casas for a prolonged period without providing him a neutral forum in which to contest the necessity of his continued detention.” Id. at 949. We further noted that while “[t]he Supreme Court upheld § 1226(c)’s mandatory detention provision in Demore, [it] did so with the specific understanding that § 1226(c) authorized mandatory detention only for the ‘limited period of [the alien’s] removal proceedings,’” which the Court emphasized was brief. Id. at 950 (alteration in original) (quoting Demore, 538 U.S. at 530). Because Demore’s holding hinged on the brevity of mandatory detention, we concluded in Casas that “prolonged detention of aliens is permissible only where the Attorney General finds such detention individually necessary by providing the alien with an adequate opportunity to contest the necessity of his detention.” Id. at 951. We thus held that, under § 1226(a)’s discretionary detention regime, a bond (including an “employment authorized” endorsement or other appropriate work permit), unless the alien is lawfully admitted for permanent residence or otherwise would (without regard to removal proceedings) be provided such authorization. RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS 15 hearing is required before the government may detain an alien for a “prolonged” period. Id. Two questions left unanswered by our opinion in Casas—the procedural requirements for bond hearings under Casas and the precise definition of “prolonged” detention—have been answered in more recent opinions. First, in Singh v. Holder, 638 F.3d 1196 (9th Cir. 2011), we provided guidance to immigration officials as to the procedures required at a Casas hearing. With regard to the appropriate burden of proof, we held that, “[g]iven the substantial liberty interest at stake . . . the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that an alien is a flight risk or a danger to the community to justify denial of bond at a Casas hearing.” Singh, 638 F.3d at 1203. We further held that, in considering whether the government has proven dangerousness, IJs should consider the factors identified in In re Guerra, 24 I. & N. Dec. 37 (B.I.A. 2006), which include the extensiveness of an alien’s criminal record, the recency of his criminal activity, and the seriousness of his offenses. Singh, 638 F.3d at 1206 (citing Guerra, 24 I. & N. Dec. at 40). We also held that “due process requires a contemporaneous record of Casas hearings,” such as a transcript or an audio recording available upon request. Id. at 1208. Second, in Diouf v. Napolitano (Diouf II), 634 F.3d 1081 (9th Cir. 2011), we addressed the definition of “prolonged” detention for purposes of the Casas bond hearing requirement. Diouf II first extended the holding of Casas to 16 RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS aliens discretionarily detained under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6).8 Id. at 1086. Rejecting the government’s proferred bases for distinguishing Casas, see id., we held that “an alien facing prolonged detention under § 1231(a)(6) is entitled to a bond hearing before an immigration judge and is entitled to be released from detention unless the government establishes that the alien poses a risk of flight or a danger to the community.” Id. at 1092. Importantly, we indicated that an “alien’s continuing detention becomes prolonged” at the 180day mark. Id. at 1091. When detention crosses the six-month threshold and release or removal is not imminent, the private interests at stake are profound. Furthermore, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of liberty in the absence of a hearing before a neutral decisionmaker is substantial. The burden imposed on the government by requiring hearings before an immigration judge at this stage of the proceedings is therefore a reasonable one. Id. at 1091–92. With this precedent in mind, we address Appellees’ likelihood of success on the merits. Because the legal 8 Section 1231(a)(6) permits the continued detention, beyond the 90-day statutory removal period that begins when a removal order becomes final, of “inadmissible aliens, criminal aliens, aliens who have violated their nonimmigrant status conditions, and aliens removable for certain national security or foreign relations reasons, as well as any alien ‘who has been determined by the Attorney General to be a risk to the community or unlikely to comply with the order of removal.’” Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 688 (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6)). RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS 17 considerations applicable to the 1226(c) and 1225(b) subclasses differ in some respects, we separately analyze Appellees’ likelihood of success with respect to each subclass.
In addressing Section 1226(c), we do not write on a blank slate. In Demore, an LPR who conceded deportability as an aggravated felon raised a due process challenge to his mandatory detention under § 1226(c). Demore, 538 U.S. at 517–18, 523. The Supreme Court first reviewed at some length Congress’s stated reasons for mandating detention of the aliens to whom Section 1226(c) applies, emphasizing concerns about flight and recidivism under the prior regime. Id. at 518–21. Ultimately, the Demore majority held that the government was not required to provide individualized determinations of an alien’s dangerousness or flight risk to detain him during his removal proceedings. See id. at 523–25. Noting that the Zadvydas Court had already held that the government’s authority to detain an alien indefinitely pending removal would be constitutionally doubtful, the Demore majority distinguished Zadvydas on two principal grounds. Id. at 527 (citing Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 699). First, while in Zadvydas the petitioners challenged their indefinite detention under circumstances where removal was not practicable, thus undermining the government’s interest in preventing flight, see id. (citing Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 690), detention under Section 1226(c) “necessarily serves the purpose of preventing deportable criminal aliens from fleeing prior to or during their removal proceedings, thus increasing the chance that, if ordered removed, the aliens will be successfully removed.” Id. at 528. Second, Demore emphasized that unlike the detention at issue in Zadvydas, 18 RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS which had no clear termination point, Section 1226(c) applies only during the pendency of removal proceedings and thus has an inherent end point—the conclusion of proceedings: Under § 1226(c), not only does detention have a definite termination point, in the majority of cases it lasts for less than the 90 days we considered presumptively valid in Zadvydas. The Executive Office for Immigration Review has calculated that, in 85% of the cases in which aliens are detained pursuant to § 1226(c), removal proceedings are completed in an average time of 47 days and a median of 30 days . . . . In the remaining 15% of cases, in which the alien appeals the decision of the Immigration Judge to the Board of Immigration Appeals, appeal takes an average of four months, with a median time that is slightly shorter. Id. at 529 (footnote and citations omitted). The Court thus upheld mandatory detention under § 1226(c), though the concurring opinion of Justice Kennedy—whose vote created a majority—noted that “a lawful permanent resident alien such as respondent could be entitled to an individualized determination as to his risk of flight and dangerousness if the continued detention became unreasonable or unjustified.” Id. at 532 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (citing Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 684–86). We have addressed the question of how broadly Demore sweeps in several decisions over the past decade. On each of these occasions, we have consistently held that Demore’s holding is limited to detentions of brief duration. See, e.g., RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS 19 Casas, 535 F.3d at 950 (“References to the brevity of mandatory detention under § 1226(c) run throughout Demore.”); Tijani, 430 F.3d at 1242 (similar); Nadarajah v. Gonzales, 443 F.3d 1069, 1081 (9th Cir. 2006) (“In Demore, the Court grounded its holding by referencing a ‘brief period’ . . . of ‘temporary confinement’ . . . . There is no indication anywhere in Demore that the Court would countenance an indefinite detention.”) (citations omitted). We are by no means the only court to interpret Demore in this way. For instance, in Diop v. ICE/Homeland Security, 656 F.3d 221 (3d Cir. 2011), the Third Circuit construed Demore, in light of Justice Kennedy’s concurrence, as recognizing that “the constitutionality of [mandatory detention] is a function of the length of the detention.” Id. at 232 (“At a certain point, continued detention becomes unreasonable and the Executive Branch’s implementation of § 1226(c) becomes unconstitutional unless the Government has justified its actions at a hearing inquiring into whether continued detention is consistent with the law’s purposes of preventing flight and dangers to the community.”); see also Ly v. Hansen, 351 F.3d 263, 271 (6th Cir. 2003) (“[T]he Court’s discussion in Kim is undergirded by reasoning relying on the fact that Kim, and persons like him, will normally have their proceedings completed within . . . a short period of time and will actually be deported, or will be released. That is not the case here.”). Thus, it is clear that while mandatory detention under § 1226(c) is not constitutionally impermissible per se, the statute cannot be read to authorize mandatory detention of criminal aliens with no limit on the duration of imprisonment. As we held in Casas, “the prolonged detention of an alien without an individualized determination of his dangerousness or flight risk would be constitutionally doubtful.” 535 F.3d 20 RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS at 951 (internal quotation marks omitted). Consistent with our previous decisions, we conclude that, to avoid constitutional concerns, § 1226(c)’s mandatory language must be construed “to contain an implicit ‘reasonable time’ limitation, the application of which is subject to federal-court review.” Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 682. The government relies heavily on Demore in advancing several arguments that the entry of the preliminary injunction was improper, but none is ultimately persuasive. First, the government directs us to the statutory history of §1226(c), arguing that by enacting the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”), Congress intentionally undid provisions of the 1990 and 1991 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) that previously granted some discretion to the Attorney General to release criminal aliens pending removal. The government cites Demore’s observation that Congress’s enactment of § 1226(c) hinged on its determination that the flight of aliens released pending removal proceedings, and crimes perpetrated with frequency by those who absconded under the prior regime, were undermining national immigration policy. See Demore, 538 U.S. at 518–19. Moreover, the government argues that the statute’s use of the mandatory “shall” plainly contemplates mandatory detention without a bond hearing. It notes that § 1226(a), which was enacted contemporaneously with § 1226(c), uses discretionary language and that § 1226(c)(2) provides for narrow exceptions to mandatory detention for criminal aliens who materially assist law enforcement. These statutes, the government contends, indicate that Congress knew how to provide for release on bond if it wished to do so. Finally, the government argues that under Zadvydas and Demore, mandatory detention under 1226(c) without a bond hearing is RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS 21 permissible because such detention has a definite termination point. We are not convinced by the government’s reasoning, which relies on a broad reading of Demore foreclosed by our post-Demore cases. Despite the Supreme Court’s holding that mandatory detention under § 1226(c) without an individualized determination of dangerousness or flight risk is constitutional under some circumstances, our subsequent decisions applying Demore make clear that Demore’s reach is limited to relatively brief periods of detention. See Casas, 535 F.3d at 951. Nothing about the district court’s preliminary injunction order requires reading the mandatory detention requirement out of § 1226(c), because “the mandatory, bureaucratic detention of aliens under § 1226(c) was intended to apply for only a limited time,” after which “the Attorney General’s detention authority rests with § 1226(a).” Id. at 948. In other words, the preliminary injunction does not require that anyone held under § 1226(c) receive a bond hearing. Rather, under a fair reading of our precedent, when detention becomes prolonged, § 1226(c) becomes inapplicable. “As a general matter, detention is prolonged when it has lasted six months and is expected to continue more than minimally beyond six months.” Diouf II, 634 F.3d at 1092 n.13. Therefore, subclass members who have been detained under § 1226(c) for six months are entitled to a bond hearing because the applicable statutory law, not constitutional law, requires one. Thus, while the government may be correct that reading §1226(c) as anything other than a mandatory detention statute is not a “plausible interpretation[] of [the] statutory text,” Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. 371, 381 (2005), it does not argue that reading an implicit temporal limitation on mandatory detention into the statute is implausible. Indeed, it could not do so, because 22 RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS such an argument is foreclosed by our decisions in Tijani and Casas. The government’s attempts to distinguish our postDemore authority are unavailing. It is certainly true, as the government notes, that by its terms Casas concerned an alien who had received an administratively final removal order, sought judicial review, and obtained a remand to the BIA; thus, it did not expressly apply to aliens awaiting the conclusion of their initial administrative proceedings. But this seems to us a distinction without a difference, and the government does not present a persuasive reason why the same protections recognized in Casas should not apply to pre-removal order detainees. “Regardless of the stage of the proceedings, the same important interest is at stake—freedom from prolonged detention.” Diouf II, 634 F.3d at 1087. Indeed, if anything, because LPRs detained prior to the entry of an administratively final removal order have not been adjudicated removable, they would seem to have a greater liberty interest than individuals detained pending judicial review or the pendency of a motion to reopen before the agency, and thus a greater entitlement to a bond hearing. See id. at 1086–87 (suggesting that a detainee who is subject to a final order of removal may have a “lesser liberty interest in freedom from detention”). The government is likewise correct that Diouf II by its terms addressed detention under § 1231(a)(6), not § 1226(c) or § 1225(b). But Diouf II strongly suggested that immigration detention becomes prolonged at the six-month mark regardless of the authorizing statute. See, e.g., id. at 1091–92 (“When detention crosses the six-month threshold and release or removal is not imminent, the private interests at stake are profound.”). Even if Diouf II does not squarely RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS 23 hold that detention always becomes prolonged at six months, that conclusion is consistent with the reasoning of Zadvydas, Demore, Casas and Diouf II, and we so hold. The government’s remaining argument against what it calls “a six-month blanket rule” is that such a rule would be contrary to the decisions of other circuits and to the principle that due process inherently must be determined through caseby-case adjudication. Neither contention is compelling. First, the government cites the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Ly, 351 F.3d at 271–73, and the Third Circuit’s decision in Diop, 656 F.3d at 234, both of which declined to establish a brightline time limit on detention without a bond hearing. But both Diop and Ly held that there are substantive limits on the length of detention under § 1226(c), and those cases are thus contrary to the government’s position that Demore permits mandatory detention under § 1226(c) irrespective of duration. To the extent Diop and Ly reject a categorical time limit, their reasoning in that respect is inapplicable here, both because this petition is a class action (and thus relief will perforce apply to all detainees) and because we already indicated in Diouf II that detention is presumptively prolonged when it surpasses six months in duration. More fundamentally, the preliminary injunction does not, as the government claims, “embrace an inflexible blanket approach to due process analysis.” Rather, the injunction requires individualized decision-making—in the form of bond hearings that conform to the procedural requirements set forth in Singh. Thus, the 1226(c) subclass members are likely to succeed on the merits.
We next address whether the prolonged detention of “applicants for admission” under Section 1225(b) raises the 24 RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS same “serious constitutional concerns” that are implicated by prolonged detention of other detained aliens. The government argues that the 1225(b) subclass members enjoy lesser constitutional protections than other detained aliens. Of course, if the statute does not raise constitutional concerns, then there is no basis for employing the canon of constitutional avoidance. See Ma v. Ashcroft, 257 F.3d 1095, 1106–07 (9th Cir. 2001). The government emphasizes the “unique constitutional position of arriving aliens” to argue that prolonged detention of 1225(b) subclass members does not implicate constitutional concerns. This argument relies principally on Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei (Mezei), 345 U.S. 206 (1953) and Barrera-Echavarria v. Rison, 44 F.3d 1441 (9th Cir. 1995) (en banc), superseded by statute as stated in Xi v. I.N.S., 298 F.3d 832, 837–38 (9th Cir. 2002)). In Mezei, the Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the multi-year detention on Ellis Island of an LPR returning from a 19-month trip abroad. See 345 U.S. at 214. Adverting to the now-defunct statutory distinction between “exclusion” and “deportation” proceedings, the Court held that: [A]liens who have once passed through our gates, even illegally, may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness encompassed in due process of law . . . . But an alien on the threshold of initial entry stands on a different footing: Whatever the procedure authorized by Congress is, it is due process as far as an alien denied entry is concerned. Id. at 212 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). In Barrera-Echavarria, we applied Mezei to uphold the RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS 25 constitutionality of prolonged detention of excludable aliens under the pre-IIRIRA version of 8 U.S.C. § 1226(e). 44 F.3d at 1448. We held that the “entry fiction” doctrine, as explained by the Supreme Court, “squarely precludes a conclusion that [excludable aliens] have a constitutional right to be free from detention, even for an extended time.” Id. at 1449. It seems clear that many, if not most, members of the 1225(b) subclass would fall into the category of aliens described in Mezei and Barrera-Echavarria as entitled to limited due process protection. See Barrera-Echavarria, 44 F.3d at 1450 (“Mezei established what is known as the ‘entry fiction,’ which provides that although aliens seeking admission into the United States may physically be allowed within its borders pending a determination of admissibility, such aliens are legally considered to be detained at the border and hence as never having effected entry into this country . . . . Noncitizens who are outside United States territories enjoy very limited protections under the United States Constitution.”) (emphasis added) (internal quotations and citations omitted). Nonetheless, we have reason to question whether Mezei and Barrera-Echavarria are squarely apposite to the inquiry before us. First, both cases were decided under pre-IIRIRA law. Because the cases apply to the former category of “excludable aliens,” it is not clear that the class of aliens to whom Mezei and Barrera-Echavarria applied is coextensive with the 1225(b) subclass in this case. As we explained in Xi: The INA is no longer denominated in terms of “entry” and “exclusion.” IIRIRA replaced these terms with the broader concept of 26 RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS “admission.” Section 1101(a)(13), which formerly defined “entry” as “any coming of an alien into the United States, from a foreign port or place . . . ,” 8 U.S.C. [§] 1101(a)(13) (1994), now defines “admission” to mean “the lawful entry of [an] alien into the United States after inspection and authorization by an immigration officer,” 8 U.S.C. [§] 1101(a)(13)(A) (2002). Concomitantly, IIR IR A dropped the concept of “excludability” and now uses the defined term of “inadmissibility.” Although the grounds for being deemed inadmissible are similar to those for being deemed excludable, compare 8 U.S.C. § 1182 (1994) with 8 U.S.C. § 1182 (2002), there are substantial differences between the two statutes. 298 F.3d at 838. Of course, this does not undermine BarreraEchavarria’s reasoning as it relates to aliens in the 1225(b) subclass to whom the entry fiction clearly applies (likely the vast majority). But the Supreme Court has instructed that, where one possible application of a statute raises constitutional concerns, the statute as a whole should be construed through the prism of constitutional avoidance. See Clark, 543 U.S. at 380 (2005) (“It is not at all unusual to give a statute’s ambiguous language a limiting construction called for by one of the statute’s applications, even though other of the statute’s applications, standing alone, would not support the same limitation. The lowest common denominator, as it were, must govern.”). Thus, the dispositive question is not whether the government’s reading of § 1225(b) is permissible in some (or even most) cases, but rather whether there is any RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS 27 single application of the statute that calls for a limiting construction.9 Under current law, § 1225(b) applies to some LPRs returning from abroad who have not been absent for the prolonged period described in Mezei. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(C) (setting forth six categories of LPRs who may be treated as seeking admission, only one of which 9 At oral argument, government counsel contended that the district court record is devoid of any evidence suggesting that members of the 1225(b) subclass include returning LPRs. This argument reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of class actions litigated under Rule 23(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including this one. See Rodriguez I, 591 F.3d at 1125–26. “The key to the (b)(2) class is ‘the indivisible nature of the injunctive or declaratory remedy warranted— the notion that the conduct is such that it can be enjoined or declared unlawful only as to all of the class members or as to none of them.’” Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541, 2557 (2011) (quoting Richard A. Nagareda, Class Certification in the Age of Aggregate Proof, 84 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 97, 132 (2009)). It would be illogical for us to conclude that the government’s reading of the statute is permissible just because, by happenstance, there are currently no detainees in the Central District who possess the requisite constitutional status to render ICE’s preferred practice illegal. Nor could we countenance such a result in light of the Supreme Court’s admonition that, “when deciding which of two plausible statutory constructions to adopt, a court must consider the necessary consequences of its choice. If one of them would raise a multitude of constitutional problems, the other should prevail—whether or not those constitutional problems pertain to the particular litigant before the Court.” Clark, 543 U.S. at 380–81. In other words, if the canon of constitutional avoidance requires us to read the statute such that bond hearings are available to individuals who have been detained for six months, then under Clark such hearings must be available to everyone detained under the statute. 28 RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS relates to prolonged absences from U.S. territory).10 “It is well established that if an alien is a lawful permanent resident of the United States and remains physically present there, he is a person within the protection of the Fifth Amendment,” and an LPR whose absence is not prolonged is assimilated to that same constitutional status. Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding, 344 U.S. 590, 596 (1953). For instance, an LPR who left the United States briefly to undertake illegal activity abroad, such 10 Section 1101(a)(13)(C) provides: An alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States shall not be regarded as seeking an admission into the United States for purposes of the immigration laws unless the alien–

continuous period in excess of 180 days, (iii) has engaged in illegal activity after having departed the United States, (iv) has departed from the United States while under legal process seeking removal of the alien from the United States, including removal proceedings under this chapter and extradition proceedings, (v) has committed an offense identified in section 1182(a)(2) of this title, unless since such offense the alien has been granted relief under section 1182(h) or 1229b(a) of this title, or (vi) is attempting to enter at a time or place other than as designated by immigration officers or has not been admitted to the United States after inspection and authorization by an immigration officer. RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS 29 as alien smuggling, would clearly be included in the 1225(b) subclass; under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(C)(iii), he would be treated as an alien seeking admission on account of having “engaged in illegal activity after having departed the United States.” See United States v. Tsai, 282 F.3d 690, 696 & n.5 (9th Cir. 2002). But in Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U.S. 21 (1982), the Supreme Court specifically held that an LPR arrested for alien smuggling upon return from a brief trip abroad is entitled to due process protection, specifically because Mezei is inapplicable in such a scenario. See id. at 34 (holding that Mezei “did not suggest that no returning resident alien has a right to due process,” and that “it does not govern this case, for Plasencia was absent from the country only a few days”). As such, it is clear that the 1225(b) subclass includes at least some aliens who are not subject to the entry fiction doctrine, and thus under Clark the statute must be construed with these aliens in mind.11 This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that the government’s position is facially inconsistent with our binding holding in Nadarajah. Nadarajah concerned an asylum seeker who had been granted relief but who remained detained pending review of his case by the Attorney General. 443 F.3d at 1071–75. Although we examined Nadarajah’s claims under the paradigm of Zadvydas, and therefore considered only the possibility of “indefinite” (as opposed to “prolonged”) detention, we nonetheless held that § 1225(b) is susceptible to a saving construction to avoid constitutional 11 This analysis also disposes of the government’s reliance on AlvarezGarcia v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d 1094 (9th Cir. 2004), which involved an individual petition for review brought by an alien who entered the United States without inspection and thus clearly was subject to the doctrine described in Mezei and Barrera-Echavarria. See id. at 1095, 1097–98. 30 RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS concerns. See id. at 1076–78. While this analysis does not directly answer the central question presented by this appeal, i.e. whether bond hearings are required at the six month mark, it does undermine the government’s arguments in two important respects. First, the government argues that § 1225(b) is too unambiguous for the doctrine of constitutional avoidance to apply. But it is not clear how this could be so in light of Nadarajah, where we have already applied the canon to this very statute. Second, and relatedly, the government’s argument that there is no due process “floor” for the treatment of aliens subject to §1225(b) is difficult to reconcile with a binding decision that already construed the statute expressly to avoid constitutional concerns. Thus, read together, Plasencia, Clark, and Nadarajah suggest that we must construe § 1225(b) to avoid potential constitutional concerns raised by its application to LPRs who enjoy due process protection. With this premise in place, the likelihood of success of the 1225(b) subclass is determined by the same analysis applicable to the 1226(c) subclass, which we conclude has demonstrated a likelihood of success. To the extent our holdings in Tijani, Casas, and Diouf II require that we construe mandatory immigration detention authority as timelimited and that bond hearings occur when detention becomes “prolonged,” there is no basis for distinguishing between the two sub-classes in this regard. Indeed, if anything it would appear that the LPRs who fall within § 1225(b)’s purview should enjoy greater constitutional protections than criminal aliens who have already failed to win relief in their removal proceedings, as in Casas. See Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763, 770 (1950) (“The alien, to whom the United States has been traditionally hospitable, has been accorded a generous and ascending scale of rights as he increases his RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS 31 identity with our society. Mere lawful presence in the country creates an implied assurance of safe conduct and gives him certain rights; they become more extensive and secure when he makes preliminary declaration of intention to become a citizen, and they expand to those of full citizenship upon naturalization.”). Appellees suggest two potential ways we could apply the canon of constitutional avoidance in construing § 1225(b). First, we could simply read a bond hearing requirement into the statute, as we did with regard to § 1231(a)(6) in the Diouf opinions. See Diouf II, 634 F.3d at 1089; Diouf v. Mukasey (Diouf I), 542 F.3d 1222, 1234 (9th Cir. 2008) (“We have specifically construed § 1231(a)(6) to permit release on bond.”) (citing Doan v. I.N.S., 311 F.3d 1160, 1162 (9th Cir. 2002)). This first suggestion, however, is problematic. For one thing, this reading would conflict with Department of Homeland Security regulations, at least as applied to some subclass members, because current regulations unambiguously strip IJs of the authority to “redetermine conditions of custody imposed by the Service with respect to” arriving aliens. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.19(h)(2)(i)(B). Moreover, it is difficult to distinguish the statute’s language from that of § 1226(c), which also provides that aliens who fall within its scope “shall” be detained and which the Supreme Court has characterized as mandating detention. See Demore, 538 U.S. at 513–14; compare 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c)(1) (“The Attorney General shall take into custody any alien who . . . .”), with id. § 1225(b)(2)(A) (“[I]f the examining immigration officer determines that an alien seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted, the alien shall be detained . . . .”). Appellees argue that the existence of the parole scheme itself undermines the government’s mandatory construction of the 32 RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS statute, but § 1226(c) also contains a statutory exception to mandatory detention. See 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c)(2) (“The Attorney General may release an alien described in paragraph (1) only if the Attorney General decides . . . that release of the alien from custody is necessary to provide protection to a witness, a potential witness, a person cooperating with an investigation into major criminal activity, or an immediate family member or close associate of a witness, potential witness, or person cooperating with such an investigation, and the alien satisfies the Attorney General that the alien will not pose a danger to the safety of other persons or of property and is likely to appear for any scheduled proceeding.”). If anything, the existence of these narrow and explicit exceptions to both statutes’ reach is evidence of their drafters’ intent to make detention mandatory in all cases to which the exceptions are inapplicable. Thus, Appellees’ first suggested construction is not a “fairly possible” reading of the statute as required for the canon of constitutional avoidance to apply. Appellees’ second suggested construction fares considerably better. Under this approach, we would simply follow Casas and hold that, to the extent detention under §1225(b) is mandatory, it is implicitly time-limited. This approach fits more naturally into our case law, which has suggested that after Demore, brief periods of mandatory immigration detention do not raise constitutional concerns, but prolonged detention—specifically longer than six months—does. This reading also has the advantage of uniformity, which the Supreme Court has suggested is an important value in matters of statutory construction. Cf. Zadvydas, 533 U.S. at 680 (“In order to limit the occasions when courts will need to make the difficult judgments called for by the recognition of this necessary Executive leeway, it is practically necessary to recognize a presumptively RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS 33 reasonable period of detention . . . . [F]or the sake of uniform administration in the federal courts, six months is the appropriate period.”). Of course, the government’s detention authority does not completely dissipate at six months; rather, the mandatory provisions of § 1225(b) simply expire at six months, at which point the government’s authority to detain the alien would shift to § 1226(a), which is discretionary and which we have already held requires a bond hearing. See Casas, 535 F.3d at 948. Finally, we note that the discretionary parole system available to § 1225(b) detainees is not sufficient to overcome the constitutional concerns raised by prolonged mandatory detention. Indeed, any argument to that effect is clearly foreclosed by our holding in Singh, which held that bond hearings must be held before a neutral IJ with the government bearing the burden of proof by clear and convincing evidence. See 638 F.3d at 1203–04. The parole process is purely discretionary and its results are unreviewable by IJs. Cf. Casas, 535 F.3d at 949 (“We hold that the government may not detain a legal permanent resident such as Casas for a prolonged period without providing him a neutral forum in which to contest the necessity of his continued detention.” (emphasis added)). Moreover, release decisions are based on humanitarian considerations and the public interest, see 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5)(A), not whether the alien “is a flight risk or will be a danger to the community.” Singh, 638 F.3d at 1203 (quoting Casas, 535 F.3d at 951). To the extent the principles of Tijani, Casas and Diouf II are applicable to the 1225(b) subclass, the constitutionally grounded hearing requirements set forth in Singh are also applicable. The government does not, and could not, contend that discretionary parole satisfies Singh. Thus, Appellees are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that § 1225(b) 34 RODRIGUEZ V . ROBBINS must be construed to authorize only six months of mandatory detention, after which detention is authorized by § 1226(a) and a bond hearing is required.