Bond Hearings Ordered For Detained Iraqi Immigrants

As previously reported, in July a Michigan federal district court issued a preliminary injunction preventing Iraqi nationals who are subject to long-standing deportation orders from being removed from the United States while they attempt to convince immigration courts that their return will subject them to persecution, torture and possible death.  Those affected are mostly Chaldean Christians, but some are Kurds and Sunni and Shiite Muslims.  Nevertheless, immigration officials began to arrest and detain some 300 of these Iraqis. 274 remain in custody.  Yesterday in  Hamama v. Adducci, (ED MI, Jan. 2, 2018), the same judge ordered bond hearings for those who have been detained for 6 months or more. Summarizing its more detailed holding, the court said:

Our legal tradition rejects warehousing human beings while their legal rights are being determined, without an opportunity to persuade a judge that the norm of monitored freedom should be followed.  This principle is familiar to all in the context of the criminal law, where even a heinous criminal — whether a citizen or not — enjoys the right to seek pre-trial release.  In the civil context of our case, this principle applies with at least equal force.  In either context, the principle illustrates our Nation’s historic commitment to individual human dignity — a core value that the Constitution protects by preserving liberty through the due process of law.

The court also granted in part plaintiffs' motions for nationwide class certification.  Detroit News reports on the decision.