In a 7-2 decision, the high court said asylum-seekers placed in expedited deportation proceeding are not entitled to seek habeas corpus.
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that migrants placed in fast-tracked deportation proceedings can’t appeal negative asylum decisions in federal court, finding that speedy removals don’t violate due process rights or constitutional protections against unlawful detention.
In a 7-2 decision authored by Justice Samuel Alito, the court said asylum-seekers whom the government seeks to summarily deport are not entitled to seek habeas corpus. The opinion from Alito, a conservative jurist appointed by President George W. Bush, said a 1996 immigration law that authorized these speedy deportations for border-crossers is constitutional.
The ruling vacates a decision by 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that found that a provision in the 1996 law barring judicial oversight of expedited removals violated the due process and suspension clauses in the Constitution. The suspension clause stipulates that the right of habeas corpus can only be suspended in times of rebellion or invasion.
Alito was joined by the rest of the high court’s conservatives in ruling for the administration, as well as liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, who filed a concurring opinion. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
Lee Gelernt, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued against the 1996 law before the Supreme Court in March, denounced Thursday’s decision. « This ruling fails to live up to the Constitution’s bedrock principle that individuals deprived of their liberty have their day in court, and this includes asylum seekers, » Gelernt said.
