Opinion ID: 767812
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Constitutionality of Indefinite Detention

Text: 51 Because the applicable statutes allow the Attorney General to indefinitely detain both Ho and Nguyen, it is necessary for this court to address the question of whether such indefinite detention is unconstitutional. Petitioners argue this court is bound by the constitutional analysis in Rodriguez-Fernandez. This argument is unpersuasive. This court's conclusion in Rodriguez-Fernandez that the statute in effect at the time did not authorize indefinite detention was influenced by the majority's belief that any other reading of the statute would raise significant constitutional problems. See Rodriguez-Fernandez, 654 F.2d at 1386. We dispose of the appeal by construing the applicable statutes to require [petitioner's] release at this time. Nevertheless, it seems important to discuss the serious constitutional questions involved if the statute were construed differently. Id.; see also Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Bldg. & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U.S. 568, 575 (1988) (reiterating that it is beyond debate that courts must construe statutes to avoid constitutional problems unless such construction is plainly contrary to Congress' intent). The Rodriguez-Fernandez majority, however, did not purport to definitively answer the constitutional questions raised; its statutory interpretation was aided, not compelled, by its constitutional analysis. The majority held that the statute did not authorize indefinite detention. See 654 F.2d at 1389-90. It did not hold that indefinite detention is unconstitutional. Thus, any discussion of the constitutionality of indefinite detention in Rodriguez-Fernandez is dicta and is not binding on this panel. See Bates v. Dep't of Corrections, 81 F.3d 1008, 1011 (10th Cir. 1992) ([A] panel of this Court is bound by a holding of a prior panel of this Court but is not bound by a prior panel's dicta.). 52 The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment provides, in pertinent, part that [n]o person shall . . . be deprived of . . . liberty . . . without due process of law. U.S. Const. Amend. V. The due process protection of the Fifth Amendment has two components, a substantive due process component and a procedural due process component. See United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 746 (1987). The substantive due process component precludes the government from engaging in conduct that shocks the conscience or interferes with rights implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. Id. (citations and quotations omitted). The procedural due process component precludes the government from depriving a person of life, liberty, or property in an unfair manner. See Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976). Substantive and procedural due process claims must be supported by an underlying liberty interest. See Fristoe v. Thompson, 144 F.3d 627, 630 (10th Cir. 1998). A liberty interest can arise in one of two ways: (1) from the Due Process Clause itself; or (2) from a state or federal statute. See id. Any due process analysis must begin with a careful description of the asserted right. Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 302 (1993). 53 Petitioners do not challenge the Attorney General's power to deport them or her power to detain them for a reasonable time until they can be physically removed from this country. Petitioners, instead, claim that because their country of origin refuses to accept them, their continued detention is indefinite, and possibly permanent and thus constitutes punishment without a criminal trial. Petitioners assert that they have a liberty interest, arising from the Due Process Clause itself, in being free from this type of incarceration. Petitioners, however, fundamentally mischaracterize the true nature of the right they are asserting. 54 Petitioners are subject to final removal orders and the only step in the removal process remaining to be accomplished is the execution of the removal orders effectuating Petitioners' physical expulsion from this country. Any right either Petitioner had to remain in this country was extinguished when their removal orders became final. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(20); 8 C.F.R. § 1.1(p) (1999) (The term 'lawfully admitted for permanent residence' means the status of having been lawfully accorded the privilege of residing permanently in the United States as an immigrant in accordance with the immigration laws, such status not having changed. Such status terminates upon entry of a final administrative order of exclusion or deportation.) 55 If their habeas petitions are granted, Petitioners will be awarded the very right denied them as a result of the final orders of removal, i.e., the right to be at large in the United States. Although the petitions could be characterized as requests to be released from incarceration, the relief they seek is indistinguishable from a request to be readmitted to this country, albeit temporarily, until their return to Vietnam can be effectuated. The purported liberty interests at stake in these cases, therefore, are most appropriately viewed from the perspective of an alien who has sought but been denied initial entry into this country and who is subject to indeterminate detention because his country of origin will not accept his return. 56 It is well-settled that aliens who are physically present in this country but who are not lawful permanent residents are entitled to some of the protections afforded by the Fifth Amendment. See Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 210 (1982) (Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as 'persons' guaranteed due process of law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.). The Supreme Court, however, has long held that an alien seeking initial admission to the United States requests a privilege and has no constitutional rights regarding his application, for the power to admit or exclude aliens is a sovereign prerogative. Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U.S. 21, 32 (1982); see also United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 537, 544 (1950) (Whatever the procedure authorized by Congress is, it is due process as far as an alien denied entry is concerned.). Although Petitioners have been continually present in this country since they were admitted as refugees, physical presence alone does not confer heightened constitutional rights on an alien seeking admission to this country. See Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 213 (1953). Consequently, while aliens physically present in the United States are clearly persons afforded some Fifth Amendment rights, they have no constitutional rights regarding their application for admission. 57 Petitioners have been ordered deported and those orders are final. The final removal orders stripped both Ho and Nguyen of any heightened constitutional status either may have possessed prior to the entry of the final removal order. Like an alien seeking initial entry, Petitioners have no right to be at large in the United States. As a consequence of their final removal orders, and notwithstanding their physical presence in this country, Ho and Nguyen have no greater constitutional rights with respect to their applications for admission than an alien seeking to enter this country for the first time. Cf. id. (For purposes of the immigration laws, moreover, the legal incidents of an alien's entry remain unaltered whether he has been here once before or not. He is an entering alien just the same, and may be excluded if unqualified for admission under existing immigration laws.). 58 Nguyen, however, argues that he possesses greater constitutional rights than excludable aliens because of his former status as a lawful permanent resident. Nguyen's argument was recently considered and rejected by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. See Zadvydas, 185 F.3d at 294-97. Acknowledging that a resident alien is entitled to greater procedural due process rights during removal proceedings than those accorded excludable aliens, that court nevertheless concluded that once a removal order has become final and the only act remaining to be carried out is the actual expulsion of the alien, no distinction exists between the constitutional rights of former resident aliens and those of excludable aliens. See id. The Fifth Circuit analyzed several Supreme Court cases and concluded, Nothing in these cases suggests that a resident alien has a broadly privileged constitutional status relative to excludable aliens, or is constitutionally entitled to more favorable treatment when both the right asserted and the governmental interest are identical to those in the parallel case of an excludable alien. Id. The Fifth Circuit could find no distinction between the right to release from continued incarceration asserted by a deportable alien subject to continued detention pending deportation and the same right asserted by an excludable alien subject to the same continued detention. See id. at 295-96. Further, that court found no distinction between the government's interest in expelling a deportable alien and its interest in expelling an excludable alien. See id. at 296. 59 We have found no case, and none was brought to our attention by Nguyen, in which either the Supreme Court or a court of appeals has held that a deportable alien subject to a final order of deportation and being detained by the United States pending that deportation possesses greater constitutional rights than an excludable alien in the same position. The Fifth Circuit's analysis was comprehensive and we find it persuasive. We conclude that once a removal order has become final and an alien who was formerly a lawful permanent resident seeks temporary re-entry into the United States, the alien possesses identical constitutional rights with respect to his application for admission as an excludable alien. 60 Both Petitioners are properly characterized as inadmissible aliens seeking temporary entry into the United States. Notwithstanding their physical presence in this country, they have no constitutional rights regarding their application for entry. See Plasencia, 459 U.S. at 32. Hence, the Due Process Clause does not provide Petitioners a liberty interest in the right they assert, i.e., the right to be temporarily admitted into this country. Furthermore, Petitioners do not contend the statutes that authorize their continued detention or any other existing state or federal law or regulation creates a liberty interest in being temporarily admitted into the United States. 9 61 Petitioners have not demonstrated that they have a liberty interest in the temporary entry they seek arising either under the Due Process Clause or from a state or federal statute or regulation. Accordingly, Petitioners' substantive and procedural due process claims fail. See Fristoe, 144 F.3d at 630.