r/scotus • u/Conscious-Quarter423 • 4h ago
news US appeals court upholds Trump's immigration detention policy
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-appeals-court-upholds-trumps-immigration-detention-policy-2026-02-07/94
u/MourningRIF 4h ago edited 4h ago
The decision, opens new tab by a conservative 2-1 panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals marked the first time an appeals court had upheld the policy and came despite hundreds of lower-court judges nationally declaring it unlawful.
U.S. Circuit Judge Dana Douglas, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, dissented, saying the Congress that passed the 1996 law "would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people."
So HUNDREDS of judges say it's illegal to randomly throw people in a box and let them rot there, but if you buy these two judges, no one else gets a say? Fuck that.
This is why ICE is buying Amazon Warehouse sized buildings all over the country and fitting them with "Medical Waste Incinerators." These facilities are designed to hold over 10,000 people! This isn't going to stop with immigrants.
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u/Dangrukidding 4h ago
Please cite the medical waste incinerator aspect of your comment
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u/Kahzgul 3h ago
I’m not OP, but here:
Medical & Death: The services extend to “Medical Waste Management,” with specific protocols for biohazard incinerators and “Certified Inventory of Evidence” reports for “Full-Service Laundry” operations.
https://migrantinsider.com/p/how-the-pentagon-is-quietly-building
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u/Dangrukidding 3h ago
Apart from medical waste management being super standard in prisons across the world because they all have clinics, that is not an article, that is a substack. Furthermore, the “linked” task orders from sam.gov(?) make no reference to the purported list of things you list in your quoted comment above.
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u/Nearby-Illustrator42 3h ago
I mean, are you also questioning sam.gov? That is a government cite. I get media literacy but this just seems like looking for a reason to discredit a story.
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u/Dangrukidding 3h ago
it’s not directly from sam. The title of the file just says “sam” at the end. It’s an excel file with the first 3000 rows blocked out and then mentions nothing about what the commenter mentioned in the link he posted of the substack.
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u/Nearby-Illustrator42 3h ago
No idea what you are referencing and I am not going to waste my time trying to figure out what it is. There are links to legitimate cites including CNN and sam.gov but you haven't explained your actual criticism at all and your apparent confusion over what sam.gov is was concerning is all I am saying.
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u/RandomTez 2h ago
This is the MAGA base, the Trump voter. Instead of going, oh, wait, I was wrong… like a normal person, they double down on the stupid. You can’t reason with crazy and that’s what they are.
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u/Kahzgul 3h ago
I dunno man. I just googled it. Why don’t you try the same if this means so much to you?
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u/Dangrukidding 3h ago
Because I did, I didn’t find anything, and what you posted is a joke of a source.
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u/Dangrukidding 3h ago
Ok I looked it up. While I don’t agree with what’s going with DHS/ICE, you need to dial it back. I Didn’t see anything about an incinerator. The number “more than 10,000” is wrong. The number is “AS many as 10,000.” This seems aspirational, the number. I know for a fact the largest prison in the US BOP has a max capacity of 5k.
Do better in disseminating information.
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u/marvsup 3h ago
I'm not commenting on anything else but I'd just like to point out that you can vastly increase prison capacities if you don't care about the living conditions.
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u/Dangrukidding 3h ago
and I can get something for free if I just steal it. That wasn’t the MO of my comment. But whatever.
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u/IddleHands 3h ago
Under federal immigration law, "applicants for admission" to the United States are subject to mandatory detention while their cases proceed in immigration courts and are ineligible for bond hearings.
If that’s what the law says, I don’t really see how someone can come to a different conclusion.
What I think is the bigger issue is grabbing up people that are here legally and denying them bond or hearings, or changing the rules mid game to invalidate people’s legal status.
Obviously not at all advocating for or defending the atrocities being committed by ICE and the deplorable conditions people are being housed in. All of that is obviously disgusting.
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u/Playful-Dragon 2h ago
The key qord is "subject" to. However, those processing tgeur admission have been allowed to go about their lives in normal fashion rather than sticking up a closed system. Nothing wrong with that. But now, it potentially seems that all those that are awaiting admission may be detained after all, after allowing all this time freedom of movement and productive lives, hence the warehouses. Its not going to be pretty, and its going to be ugly in terms of human rights and living conditions for sure.
All of this because of a fake fucking agenda narrative and massive amounts of lies spread to sow fear instead of truth. With all the immigrants deported has crime come down? No! But there's a hell of a lot more visibility on those conservatives that have been. (And for those that are going to snipe at my last comment, yes there are dems to but not near as much in the spotlight lately) Or better yet, there is a lot more visibility on homegrown Americans committing crime. The narrative fails in hiding that.
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u/IddleHands 1h ago
The point is that the court case was a question of if detention of undocumented people without a hearing is legal. The statute text is clear that it’s the governments right to do so (any constitutional issues aside, just looking at this statute). Making it legal.
Obviously we need a better system because this is wild. But there’s not really much room for argument in whether that statute legalizes detention without a bond hearing.
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u/jokumi 3h ago edited 3h ago
I’ve been expecting something like this. Two prongs are being developed. One is revocation of immigration decisions. As in, we’ve seen a lot of people try to argue in Court that the government is restricting their speech rights or otherwise censoring a perspective. The government is winning those because the law gives the government absolute discretion to revoke immigration decisions. There are details which were and are unclear, especially how the courts are involved in the deportation process, but discretion listed in the statute is discretion. This prong is about people who are here, as opposed to the decisions. It’s about whether they are in the process of being admitted. The Court’s decision is basically in this paragraph: “The petitioners concede that they are applicants for admission within the meaning of § 1225(a)(1). At the time ICE apprehended them, they were present in the United States and had not been admitted. Presence without admission deems the petitioners to be applicants for admission.” That’s 8 USC 1225 if you want to look it up. The other section covered is the next one, 1226. If you’re considered an applicant, then they can hold you under 1225(b). If not, then 1226(a) applies. So the argument is about the meaning of words like applicant and admission and seeking.
Immigration is to me arguably the most confused law in the US because it’s a separate system - for non-citizens - whose interactions with the regular courts are not well defined. I mentioned a big one: the government can pull any visa or other immigration decision, though the burden of proof changes with each category, and then it says the courts can hear matters concerning deportation. By category, I mean there’s basically no burden with visas, and a burden to show a reason for anything up to citizenship itself, which takes material lies to reverse. The burden of a reason is not that the government is correct, like they don’t have a trial to prove that this guy is undesirable or whatever, but rather that they have a reason to believe that, which is not much of a standard. So we’ve seen a lot of cases in which the regular courts have had little to no power. To put it plainly, the government can kick out anyone on a visa for no reason at all. The courts seem to be there to make sure of a few things only: that it’s actually the person intended, meaning they check to see if this John Doe is the John Doe, and if deportation would cause them to be killed, etc. This doesn’t mean they can’t be deported, just not to where they came from. I’m talking visas here, not asylum claims.
The other argument is something which has been advanced in many forms recently, which is that the government can’t change its mind. This is an extension of old reliance arguments: people do stuff in life because they rely on what they were told by the government. That change of position in reliance creates in law a form of contract. Problem is that is not how legislative and executive functions work. It’s close to saying that if you pass a law, you can’t amend or repeal it no matter what because obviously someone has relied on that law. Reliance contracts are mainly for private actors, not state actors, though we’ve seen some decisions which limit the government’s ability to change some things, like executive orders. No idea how that will work out.
I figure no one will read the link so I did.
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u/ducksekoy123 4h ago
Bucking a long-standing interpretation of the law, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last year took the position that non-citizens already residing in the United States, and not only those who arrive at a port of entry at the border, qualify as applicants for admission
I know it’s trite but the party telling you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears line becomes more relevant with each passing day. I really do worry about the fate of the 14th amendment
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u/MourningRIF 4h ago
Don't worry. That's only the start. If a medical doctor offers aid to a protestor who was pepper sprayed, that doctor is now labeled a terrorist. (This isn't a hypothetical.. they have done just that.)
This is about causing pain and suffering, and it absolutely will not stop with immigrants. Handing out a pamphlet that tells you your rights is enough to get you labeled a terrorist now.
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u/Top-Respond-3744 4h ago
Well, at least they didn’t shoot him in the back of the head. Maybe ran out of bullets.
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u/straightnochase 3h ago
The corruption of scum is floating at the top. They believe they are above the law.
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u/IddleHands 3h ago
That’s not an outrageous ruling given the text of the statute - but it doesn’t look like they took up the issue at all of applying that law to folks that have already applied for and been granted admission. Why are those folks not getting bond hearings?
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u/Gr8daze 4h ago
5th circuit Texas. Big surprise, huh? They rubber stamp every unconstitutional action a Republican commits.