Ali v. Brott, No. 19-1244 (8th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this CasePetitioner, who has been held in custody under 8 U.S.C. 1226(a) since May 2017 while he litigates the issue of whether he is a removable alien, petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus. The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of habeas relief to petitioner, holding that section 1226(a) is not susceptible of more than one construction and that the constitutional avoidance doctrine has no application here. Therefore, the district court erred when it concluded that pre-removal order detention under section 1226(a) is limited to "the period reasonably necessary to receive a removal decision." The court remanded for further consideration of petitioner's constitutional arguments.
Court Description: Grasz, Author, with Gruender and Benton, Circuit Judges] Prisoner case - Habeas. Ali has been held in federal immigration custody pending resolution of his immigration proceedings since May, 2017. In this habeas petition he alleged his continued detention was not authorized by 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1226(a), violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process and was an unauthorized seizure under the Fourth Amendment; the district court determined that while Section 1126(a) did not explicitly limit the time an alien could be detained until he was ordered removed, pre-removal detention was limited to "the period reasonably necessary to receive a removal decision; the court then concluded that Ali's detention had exceeded this limit and ordered him released within 30 days. Held: the district court erred in reading a reasonableness limitation into the statute; remanded for consideration of Ali's constitutional law claims. [ April 15, 2019
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.