The Wall Street Journal reports that the DOJ stated in a letter to the Supreme Court on Friday that it provided the Court with erroneous data on the length of time certain noncitizens with criminal records spend in no-bail detention, which helped the government win Demore v. Kim, a 2003 case upholding a blanket policy of denying bail to thousands of immigrants imprisoned while appealing deportation orders. The Court’s opinion in Demore cited the incorrect government data in holding that “the very limited time of detention” such noncitizens face while their appeals are pending is too short to trigger a constitutional right to a hearing to argue for bail. The DOJ’s new estimate puts the average detention period at more than a year, or more than three times the four-month estimate the Court relied on in its Demore ruling.
Very Troubling.