Marvin Miranda v. Merrick Garland, No. 20-1828 (4th Cir. 2022)
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8 U.S.C. Section 1226(a) permits the Attorney General to detain aliens pending their removal hearings. The Attorney General has adopted procedures for making that discretionary decision. Under those procedures, an alien is given notice and three opportunities to seek release by showing they are neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community. A district court determined that a class of aliens had a likelihood of establishing that those procedures violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. That court then issued a preliminary injunction ordering that to continue detaining an alien under 1226(a), the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that an alien is either a flight risk or a danger to the community. The district court also required immigration judges to consider an alien’s ability to pay any bond imposed and consider alternatives to detention.
The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s preliminary injunction order and held that under 8 U.S.C. Section 1252(f)(1), the district court lacked jurisdiction to issue class-wide injunctive relief that enjoined or restrained the process used to conduct Section 1226(a) bond hearings. Further, the court held that as for the individual relief issued by the district court, the detention procedures adopted for 1226(a) bond hearings provide sufficient process to satisfy constitutional requirements. Thus, the aliens are unable to establish a likelihood of success on their due process claims. Nor have they shown that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on May 19, 2022.
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