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March 26, 2019

Justices' Immigration Detention Ruling May Have Small Impact

[Cross-posted from Law360]

In ramping up immigration enforcement, the Trump administration has expanded the use of detention. As with many of his policy initiatives, President Donald Trump has added his own rhetorical and policy flourish to aggressive enforcement efforts.

Through an executive order issued within days of his inauguration, he declared the end of “catch and release” of noncitizens (i.e., allowing them a possibility of bonding out of custody pending their removal hearings) and later instituted a policy of separating Central American parents and children in immigration detention. This latter policy provoked a national — and bipartisan —furor that led to its speedy abandonment.

Nonetheless, immigrant detention continues to be central to the Trump administration’s response to Central American asylum seekers. At a critical juncture in contemporary immigration enforcement, the U.S. Supreme U.S. Supreme Court ’s 5-4 decision last week in Nielsen v. Preap[1] expanded executive power to detain immigrants.

Along with noncitizens associated with terrorism, “criminal aliens” are often targeted for harsh treatment under the U.S. immigration laws. A large portion of the removals from the United States of lawful permanent residents each year are of immigrants convicted of crimes. The executive branch, including when Barack Obama was president, lost in the Supreme Court several removal cases based on relatively minor criminal convictions.[2]

Congressional amendments in 1996 toughened the immigration statute to require mandatory detention of certain categories of “criminal aliens." In Demore v. Kim (2003),[3] the Supreme Court upheld the lawfulness of detention of immigrants convicted of certain crimes pending their removal from the United States under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c).

Less than two years ago, the court grappled with the right to a bond hearing for immigrants convicted of crimes placed in detention in Jennings v. Rodriguez (2018);[4] after holding re-argument in the case, the court, in an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, held that the statute did not require a bond hearing and remanded the case to the court of appeals to address the constitutionality of mandatory detention.

The contemporary use of detention by the Trump administration heightened the attention paid to the Supreme Court’s review of the complicated statutory question of immigrant detention in Nielsen v. Preap. Entering the United States as a refugee from Cambodia in 1981, Mony Preap had several convictions, mostly small-time drug convictions.

Released from criminal custody in 2006, he was not arrested by the U.S. immigration authorities until 2013. The U.S. government placed two other plaintiffs, Juan Lozano Magdaleno (who entered the United States from Mexico in 1974) and Eduardo Vega Padilla (a Mexican citizen who entered the country in 1966), into immigrant detention five and 11 years, respectively, after their release from state custody.

Two class actions and a group of habeas corpus cases challenged the lawfulness under the immigration statute of U.S. government arrests of lawful permanent residents long after release from state custody. Importantly, the lawsuits did not challenge the statute on constitutional grounds but only claimed that the detention was not authorized by the statute.

8 U.S.C. § 1226(c) provides that the U.S. government “shall take into custody any alien [described in subsequent sub-sections as being convicted of certain crimes and being related to persons engaged in `terrorist activities’] ... when the alien is released, without regard to whether the alien is released on parole, supervised release or probation ....” (emphasis added). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had held that the statute only authorized detention immediately upon the release of the immigrant from state custody.

In immigration cases that come before the Supreme Court, the issues raised generally boil down to the interpretation of the immigration statute, which is famous for its complexity, and, when appropriate, the deference properly afforded the agency’s interpretation. In the end, the proper textual interpretation of Section 1226(c) was at the center of the disagreement among the justices in the case of Nielsen v. Preap. The court found that the statutory language was clear and that resort to deference doctrines was unnecessary.

Justice Alito, joined in full by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and in large part by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, held that the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of Section 1226(c) was contrary to the plain text and structure of the statute. The court instead found that the statute allowed detention even if the U.S. government did not assume custody until after — indeed long after — release from state custody.

Telegraphing the final outcome, Justice Alito’s opinion began as follows:

"Aliens who are arrested because they are believed to be deportable may generally apply for release on bond or parole while the question of their removal is being decided ... Congress has decided, however, that this procedure is too risky in some instances. Congress therefore adopted a special rule for aliens who have committed certain dangerous crimes and those who have connections to terrorism." (emphasis added).

Thus, in interpreting the statutory language, the court emphasizes at the outset the importance of the fact that the detention at issue involves immigrants who “committed certain dangerous crimes” and those with “connections to terrorism,” two particularly disfavored groups of noncitizens under the immigration laws.

In concluding that the plain language of Section 1226(c) allowed immigrant detention long after release from state custody, the majority engaged in a textual analysis that only a grammarian could love. The majority painstakingly reviewed the language of the statutory provision in question and emphasized that it applies to noncitizens convicted of crimes as well as relatives of terrorists.

Relying on, among other things, definitions from a couple of dictionaries, and a book on interpretation co-authored by the late Justice Antonin Scalia (A. Scalia & B. Garner, "Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts" (2012)), the majority found that the immigrants were subject to mandatory detention “even if (as with respondents) the Secretary did not arrest them immediately `when’ they were `released.’” Justice Alito justified that conclusion by noting that “respondents’ unsparing deadline will often be missed for reasons beyond the Federal Government’s control,” (citation omitted), such the refusal of state and local government to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

Among the cases that the majority relied on in support of its interpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1225(c) was its decision in United States v. Montalvo-Murillo (1990).[5] In that case, the court held that “a provision that a detention hearing ‘shall be held immediately upon the [detainee’s] first appearance before the judicial officer’ did not ban detention after a tardy hearing.” (citation omitted).

The majority concluded that, because the statute was not ambiguous, the canon of construction calling for the interpretation of the statute to avoid constitutional questions did not apply. In reaching that conclusion, the court relied on Jennings v. Rodriguez, in which the court reached a similar conclusion in finding that the statutory provision in question did not provide for a periodic bond hearing for immigrants held in detention.

Going out of its way to emphasize that no constitutional questions were before the court, the majority concluded its analysis of the statute as follows: “While respondents might have raised a head-on constitutional challenge to § 1226(c), they did not. Our decision today on the meaning of that statutory provision does not foreclose as-applied challenges — that is, constitutional challenges to applications of the statute as we have now read it.” Based on that invitation, expect future as-applied constitutional challenges.

For a plurality of the court, Justice Alito, joined by the chief justice and Justice Kavanaugh, relied on Jennings v. Rodriguez to conclude that the immigration statute allowed for judicial review. As in that case, the immigration statute’s framework could be challenged even though the statute bars review of discretionary judgments by immigration officials in individual removal cases. In addition, Justice Alito reasoned that, because there was at least one named plaintiff with a live case when the class was certified, the case was not moot.

Although agreeing with the majority’s analysis of Section 1226(c), Justices Thomas and Gorsuch disagreed on the issue of judicial review. Justice Thomas reiterated what he said in his concurrence in Jennings v. Rodriguez — that the court lacked jurisdiction of class actions under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(l), which he reads as barring such review. Justice Kavanaugh “wrote separately to emphasize the narrowness of the case before us ...” He emphasized that the sole question before the court was the interpretation of the statute to determine whether the executive branch had “to immediately detain the noncitizen when the noncitizen is released from custody ..” (emphasis in original).

Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, dissented. As highlighted in news reports on the decision, Justice Breyer
firmly rebutted Justice Kavanaugh’s claim that the issue decided by the court was “narrow”:

"Under the Government’s view, the aliens subject to detention without a bail hearing may have been released from criminal custody years earlier, and may have established families and put down roots in a community. These aliens may then be detained for months, sometimes years, without possibility for release; they may have been convicted of only minor crimes ... Moreover, for a high percentage of them, it will turn out after months of custody that they will not be removed from the country because they are eligible to receive a form of relief from removal ... Thus, in terms of potential consequences and basic American legal traditions, ... the question before us is not a 'narrow' one ... "

Justice Breyer’s dissent emphasizes that the language and structure of the statute, as well as the canon of constitutional avoidance, all undercut the majority’s interpretation of the statute. He emphasized the importance of the question because, under the majority’s interpretation, the immigrant would be detained without the opportunity to bond out of custody — and thus would be detained even if not determined to be a flight risk or a danger to the community.

Like the majority, Justice Breyer closely parsed the language of the statute. He, however, did not find the interpretation “plain” and reached a contrary conclusion. His interpretation was that “[t]he words `when the alien is released’ require the Secretary to detain aliens under subsection (c) within a reasonable time after their release from criminal custody — presumptively no longer than six months.”

Offering an interesting insight into the former law professor’s mind, Justice Breyer employed an analogy of a recipe for cooking an Angus steak to illustrate his point of statutory construction. Justice Breyer also would invoke the canon of constitutional avoidance to interpret the statute to avoid constitutional questions that might be raised in the event of an arrest years after release from state custody and the denial of a bond hearing. Justice Breyer concluded that “[i]n my view, the Court should interpret the words of the statute to reflect Congress’ likely intent, an intent that is consistent with our basic values ... I fear that the Court’s contrary interpretation will work serious harm to the principles for which American law has long stood.”

Nielsen v. Preap is but another step in the expansion of executive power over immigrant detention. The court so held in a time when the U.S. government is aggressively detaining immigrants and promises to do more. Although continuing that trend, the holding will not likely have a huge impact on immigration law and immigration detention.

As Justice Kavanaugh made clear, the court did not address the constitutionality of detention without the possibility of bond, an issue that it remanded to the lower court in Jennings v. Rodriguez. The constitutional question thus remains alive and likely will be before the court again. More generally, all of the justices carefully parsed the text of the statute and considered the statutory structure. They took the task of judicial review seriously. In that way, the court’s approach continues the court’s move toward the “normalization” of immigration law, applying ordinary methods to interpreting the immigration statute.

[1] https://casetext.com/case/nielsen-v-preap-2

[2] See, for example, Moncrieffe v. Holder, 569 U.S. 184 (2013) (vacating removal order based on conviction for possession of small amount of marijuana) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/11-702.

[3] 503 U.S. 510 (2003) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/01-1491.ZS.html

[4] 138 S. Ct. 830 (2017) https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/15-1204_f29g.pdf

[5] 495 U.S. 711 (1990) https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/495/711.html

March 25, 2019

Chile and Migration: The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and More

[Cross-posted from Immigration Prof]

 

Last week, I got behind in my blogging while I was in Santiago, Chile, recruiting international scholars and students, presenting talks on immigration, and meeting with alums and friends of UC Davis School of Law. 

During my visit, it became apparent that immigration -- as well as the United States' college admissions scandal -- was a hot topic.  As discussed in this Migration Policy Institute report, Chile has experienced a national debate on immigration. In response to public concern with Haitian, Dominican, and other immigrants, new President Sebastián Piñera has proposed greater restrictions on immigration.  The consensus appears to be that the Immigration Act of 1975 needs to be reformed; however, the Chilean Congress has been unable to act.

Pinera

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

During my visit, I had the privilege of meeting with the deans and faculty at two amazing law schools.  First, I visited Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and lectured on judicial review and the U.S. immigration laws.  In this talk, I summarized recent developments in the Supreme Court's review of the constitutionality of the immigration laws and policies.  My ultimate conclusion is that the Court consistently engages in meaningful judicial review of the immigration laws. 

Chile law

Universidad de Chile law school

The next day, I visited the Universidad de Chile law school and delivered the following lecture:

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration: The United States and Chile, by Kevin R. Johnson. Remarks presented at the Universidad de Chile Law School, March 20, 2019

In December 2019, more than 150 nations approved the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration  (Global Compact).  Building on the 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, the Compact continues the process of promoting cooperation, coordination, and dialogue on migration in the international community. It identifies a number of objectives and commitments, primarily directed at cooperation and coordination. The Compact also calls for, among other things, nondiscrimination against migrants and providing proof of identity to migrants in a state.

A number of nations, including the United States, Australia, Chile, and the Dominican Republic, declined to sign the Global Compact. As with other international arrangements, a major concern was that the Compact would result in the surrendering of national sovereignty over immigration. Immigration is a controversial -- indeed explosive -- issue in many nations and strong voices often advocate for national sovereignty and the exercise of power over immigration and immigration controls.

More generally, in the United States President Trump has expressed skepticism about international institutions, including and especially the United Nations. In responding to international trade, immigration, and foreign policy generally, the President has consistently and unequivocally emphasized “America First.”  That approach, of course, places primacy on national sovereignty and serves as a frame for all of the U.S. government’s relations with other countries.

To calm sovereignty concerns with the Global Compact, the Compact did not impose binding obligations on nations but was a non-enforceable promise to cooperate and coordinate migration policies. In fact, the Compact expressly recognized national sovereignty over immigration and enforcement. It specifically provides that:

"[t]he Global Compact reaffirms the sovereign right of States to determine their  national migration policy and their prerogative to govern migration within their jurisdiction, in conformity with international law. Within their sovereign jurisdiction, States may distinguish between regular and irregular migration status, including as they determine their legislative and policy measures for the implementation of the Global Compact, taking into account different national realities, policies, priorities and requirements for   entry, residence and work, in accordance with international law."

Global Compact, Paragraph 15

Reasons Some States May Have Declined to Join the Global Compact

Reasons beyond concerns with ceding national sovereignty also likely contributed to some nations declining to join the Global Impact. The following reasons may have contributed to the decision of the United States, to not sign the Compact:

Immigration Regulation Raises Sensitive Domestic Political Issues

Immigration touches on issues of language, culture, and the sense of national identity. Such issues are controversial in the United States. They also are generally thought of as a primarily domestic, not international, concern and the subject of intense internal debate.

The Omnipresent Concern with Mass Migration.

When it comes to immigration, nations in the developed world often worry about mass migration and see a need to exercise control over immigration, with the corollary need for limits on the number of immigrants coming into the country. Such concerns raise controversial economic, political, social, and cultural issues that affect all people of society. Concerns with mass migration in the United States have hindered efforts at domestic immigration reform. Such reform has been discussed for many years. That is true even though it is generally agreed that the current U.S. immigration regime requires reform. The United States has an antiquated immigration system created by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which was passed by Congress at a time when exclusion and deportation of communists was paramount. These are not the major immigration concerns of the 21st century. Although amended on numerous occasions, the INA remains the basic U.S. immigration law. 

Concerns with the Long Term Impacts of Previous Migration and Refugee Accords.

Some of the nations’ resistance to the Global Compact may be rooted in concerns with the impact of the implementation of previous international accords, such as the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees (1951) and the United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (1967) . Those treaties created powerful -- and binding on states -- international protections for noncitizens who flee persecution or have a well-founded fear of future persecution.

In the United States, the U.N. Protocol led Congress to pass the Refugee Act of 1980, which created the modern asylum system in the United States. Concerns with the numbers of asylum seekers in the United States have provoked concern and tough responses, including immigrant detention, family separation, and the return of Central American asylum seekers to Mexico. Such concerns may have contributed to the resistance to the Global Compact.

Inconsistency with Contemporary U.S. Immigration Enforcement Policies

Immigration policies in the United States today focus primarily on immigration enforcement. Besides not being crafted for the realities of modern migration pressures, the policies are not consistent with the humanitarian spirit of the Global Compact.

President Trump has spoken harshly of immigration and immigrants. He has bolstered immigration enforcement measures and has sought to restrict legal immigration. To that end, the Trump administration, among other things, has issued three versions of the Muslim ban, aggressively employed immigrant detention, and fervently advocated building a wall along the U.S./Mexico border. President Trump frequently declares that the nation’s southern border is in “crisis” and has talked about the “invasion” from the South. Such concerns almost certainly led to a general resistance in the United States to the call for migration cooperation in the Global Compact.       

President Trump also has specifically attacked Muslim, Mexican, Salvadoran, and Haitian noncitizens. The verbal attacks have translated into tough immigration enforcement measures directed at these groups. Although some of these measures have provoked controversy and been halted by the courts, many have gone into effect.           

The harsh tone combined with the tough enforcement measures in the United States have frightened immigrant communities, as well as people with affinities for those communities. Besides striking fear into immigrants, which have impacts on their well-being as well as their cooperation with government, the harsh rhetoric and attacks on immigrants has delayed indefinitely much needed congressional reform to the immigration laws.

The Need for International Cooperation

Global economic and political pressures fuel migration and affect many nations. No single nation can effectively address migration pressures and flows on its own. In the future, nations must recognize the following in addressing migration.

In addition, immigration law and policy affects the rights and well-being of human beings. Harsh policies adversely impact human lives. Nations must work to create humane, as well as manageable and efficient, immigration policies.

At the same time, migration of people from other countries bring changes to the receiving nations. Efforts need to be made to focus not on simply admission and removal but also on policies that facilitate the integration of immigrants into society.          

The Global Compact was designed to facilitate much-needed coordination and cooperation on migration matters. Multilateral work is much needed as nations around the world undoubtedly will continue to experience migration flows. Although some of the migrants are refugees fleeing civil strife or fearing persecution, migration also represents a response to economic opportunity, political freedoms, and family reunification.

Put simply, to effectively manage migration, the international community must work together. Building border walls between nations will not end immigration or the pressures for migration. Instead, international arrangements like the Global Compact offer the hope of the future – to effectively, efficiently, and humanely manage migration in the 21st century.

March 5, 2019

A Legislative Response to California's Housing Emergency: Senator Skinner's SB 330

by Rick Frank and Christopher Elmendorf

[Cross-posted from Legal Planet]

How to Make a Good Bill Even Better

Last week, as President Trump harrumphed about the faux emergency on our nation’s Southern border, California State Senator Nancy Skinner introduced a potentially transformative bill that addresses California’s real emergency: the ever-escalating cost of housing in the state’s economically productive metropolitan regions. As this post will explain, Skinner’s new bill, SB 330, is a hugely important milestone in the evolution of state land use and housing policy, but it still falls short of what’s needed. Happily, there is a fairly straightforward (and conveniently low-visibility) way to fix the bill’s shortcomings.

What’s Great About SB 330

Starting as far back as the 1970s, California has enacted a huge range of mostly ineffectual remedies for the arbitrary and excessive barriers to new housing that local governments continue to throw up. In addition to being (largely) ineffectual, most of the state’s mandates have one other thing in common: they apply indiscriminately to local governments throughout the state, paying little heed to differences among jurisdictions in housing demand, supply restrictions, development potential, or planning capacity.

SB 330 is different. It recognizes that the housing crisis now afflicting San Francisco, whose median home would cost you $1.2 million, is not really a crisis in, say, Fresno, where the median house barely crests $200,000. Most of SB 330’s provisions would apply only to a subset of “covered” jurisdictions, defined by average rent and vacancy rates. The idea of tying state housing remedies to market conditions is very important, and long overdue. San Francisco needs to permit loads of new housing. Fresno does not.

SB 330’s “coverage” strategy is also politically advantageous. State legislators can pull specific jurisdictions out of the bill’s reach by adjusting the coverage formula or cutoffs. Back in the 1960s, Congress used the same strategy to pass the Voting Rights Act. The VRA created special protections for black voters in most of the Jim Crow South, but its coverage formula was reverse-engineered to exclude Texas. This was the price of getting the bill across the finish line.

SB 330 would impose a panoply of new controls on the jurisdictions that it covers. Among other things, SB 330 would prohibit covered jurisdictions from applying any off-street parking requirement to new housing proposals, and it would prevent them from making their zoning more restrictive, from enacting new caps on building permits, and from applying fees or historic-preservation ordinances retroactively.

However, apart from the parking provisions, SB 330 does nothing to erode the thick accumulation of growth controls, excessive zoning restrictions, cumbersome permitting procedures, exorbitant fees, arbitrary code requirements, and layers of discretionary review that already exist in the covered jurisdictions.

How to Improve SB 330

SB 330’s glaring omission—its failure to remove existing barriers to housing in the high-cost jurisdictions—probably reflects a political calculation. If the bill were to enumerate certain “excessive” barriers to housing which local governments could no longer enforce, it might become too hot to handle.

But an effective attack on existing barriers to new housing needn’t be so overt. As one of us (Elmendorf) explains in a draft law review article, the California Legislature could bring about the elimination of many of these restrictions simply by tweaking the legal standard for determining whether a local government’s housing plan complies with state law, and by authorizing mayors to promulgate interim housing plans.

Let us explain. Since 1980, California has required its local governments to revise the “housing element” of their general plans every 4-8 years. The housing element is supposed to explain how each local government will accommodate its fair share of regional housing needs. It must include an analysis of local constraints to the development of housing, and a schedule of actions addressing those constraints. Local governments must submit their periodically updated housing elements to the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) for review and approval.

But there’s a hitch. The legal standard for what constitutes a “substantially compliant” housing element has no teeth. So long as the housing element “contains the elements mandated by the statute,” the courts will uphold it. Whether it will actually result in construction of the target number of units has been regarded as a question of “workability” or “merits,” and irrelevant as matter of law to the housing element’s validity.

This deferential approach makes some sense for the Fresnos of the world, but it’s a disaster for the San Franciscos. SB 330 is thus the perfect vehicle for a solution. California should enact a new definition of “substantial compliance” that applies only to the high-cost jurisdictions covered by SB 330. In these jurisdictions, a housing element should be deemed compliant only (1) if it is likely to result in production of the targeted amount of new housing over the planning cycle; or (2) if it removes, or commits the local government to removing, all unreasonable constraints to the production of new housing. Discrete, removable constraints which are identified in the housing element but not reformed on schedule should become inoperative as a matter of state law. And if a local government fails to adopt a new, substantially compliant housing element on schedule, state law should authorize the mayor (with HCD’s approval) to promulgate an interim housing element, which would govern housing development in the meantime.

These seemingly small-bore reforms would have far-reaching consequences. Initially, they would make it easy for a city’s elected leadership to suspend exclusionary, voter-adopted growth controls, while deflecting blame to the state. If a housing element lists a voter-adopted restriction on its schedule of (unreasonable) “constraints,” and if the city’s voters fail to approve an adequate reform by the appointed date, the constraint would be repealed by operation of state law. While local officials may have some reservations about putting voter-adopted measures on the chopping block, the state-law framework would give them cover. “The state pushed us to do it; we had to or else we’d lose our state funding,” they can say.

And if mayors can promulgate interim housing elements when cities would otherwise be out of compliance, this will shift cities’ land-use policies toward the mayors’ preferences. Mayors, who are elected citywide, tend to be less responsive to neighborhood NIMBY groups than city councils. Knowing that the mayor could issue an interim—yet legally binding—housing element, city councils would make generous concessions ex ante to the mayor, in the hopes of avoiding a veto or other mayorally-induced delay of the council’s housing element.

Senator Skinner deserves major plaudits for SB 330. Now let’s make it even better.