Trump Supreme Court case 'we should all be worried' about detailed in new analysis

The Supreme Court is set to decide whether to take up a case that "we should all be worried" about, Alexis Romero wrote for Slate on Wednesday — and it concerns a power the Trump administration has long sought, and lower federal courts have long curtailed.

Specifically, the case could decide just how long the federal government is allowed to hold migrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention — which the Trump administration believes it can do indefinitely.

"Carol Black and Keisy G.M. are both green-card holders who have lived in the United States legally for decades," Romero wrote. Black is from Jamaica and G.M. from the Dominican Republic. They were convicted of crimes and served sentences, after which ICE detained them for seven and 21 months, respectively, without a bond hearing. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled they were entitled to a bond hearing because they were arrested on civil proceedings, and "the Supreme Court has long suggested that there would be serious constitutional problems with a statute that allows indefinite civil detention."

However, the Supreme Court might come to a different conclusion here, Romero warned, because "the statute the government relied on for Black’s and G.M.’s detentions is the Immigration and Nationality Act. And in previous cases, the Supreme Court has interpreted the law’s bond provisions narrowly."

Trump's administration is taking an extreme and absolutist position in this case, Romero noted — not merely arguing that Black and G.M.'s detentions specifically were reasonable, but that nobody held in ICE detention is entitled to a bond hearing ever and can be held indefinitely, completely doing away with the standard test the court applies in Mathews v. Eldridge, where judges weigh the loss of liberty and risk of error against the government's interest in continued detention.

This could have far-reaching consequences, Romero said, because "if the court is willing to craft an exemption where it won’t apply it all, it could create a trend that undermines due process across the court system."

Romero concluded by noting that Black essentially lost everything during his detention, having to sell his home and business, and giving up his 40-year residency in the U.S. "Surely this was what the administration wanted all along, as it seeks to convert Black and brown 'permanent' residents into temporary immigrants, one ICE detention at a time."