The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, has come together to consider three cases regarding illegal aliens: Rodriguez v. Ortega, Angel v. Mullin and Alvarado v. Vergara.
Subjected by statute to mandatory detention pending removal from the U.S., illegal immigrants are held without bond so they won’t disappear from the country before deportation. The court will determine if these immigrants have a right under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to a bond hearing and possible release into this country, pending their removal.
Ira Mehlman is media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which has filed a brief in the case. He says that it is, ultimately, hard to predict what the judges will do.
“The Fifth Circuit, generally, it's not the Ninth Circuit, but you never know what any court might do in any particular scenario. But in our view, the law is very clear that if you are in the country illegally, you must be detained or removed,” Mehlman says. “In the long run, that is the most effective way to deal with this issue, to make it clear to people that coming to the United States illegally is not going to be rewarded by being turned loose in the country and being allowed to remain here.”
Furthermore, he says illegals have another option.
"If you are in the country illegally and taken into custody, you can be released from custody anytime you want, as long as you agree to leave the country and go home. It is not like a criminal case where you're going to be locked up and have no other options,” Mehlman says. “In this scenario, you do have another option, which is simply to go back to the country you came from.”
He hopes the court sees that it is not the U.S. that deprives these aliens of their liberty and upholds the statute.
