Jennings v. Rodriguez

Whether it violates the Constitution and the immigration laws to subject immigrants in deportation proceedings to long-term detention without individualized bond hearings.

This case challenges the government’s practice of detaining immigrants facing deportation proceedings for months or years without due process, including many long-term green-card holders and asylum seekers.

The Ninth Circuit ruled that the government must provide individualized bond hearings to assess danger and flight risk when detention exceeds six months, and every six months thereafter. The decision agreed with the ACLU, which represents plaintiffs. The case will be heard in the Supreme Court on Nov. 30, 2016. The Court’s ruling could affect thousands of immigration detainees across the country.

Prolonged detention of such immigrants is a massive waste of taxpayer dollars, at a daily cost of $164 per detainee per day, and more than $2 billion a year. In America, no one should be locked up for months or years without a hearing to determine if their detention is even justified.

For further background on the case, please see the case page Rodriguez, et al. v. Robbins, et al., originally filed in a federal district court in Los Angeles in 2007.

Counsel for plaintiffs are the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, the Stanford Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, and Sidley Austin LLP.  

For more information on people affected by prolonged immigration detention, see these stories.