On April 15, 2009, two longtime permanent residents of the United States who had been detained in Pennsylvania prisons for periods exceeding six months while they pursued challenges to decisions to deport them filed a class action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the prisons that held them in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101 et seq., the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 551 et seq., and the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. The plaintiffs, represented by private and public interest counsel, asked the court for a writ of habeas corpus and injunctive and declaratory relief, alleging violations of their Fifth Amendment rights. Specifically, the plaintiffs claimed that their prolonged detention pending immigration proceedings without a hearing to determine whether such detention was justified violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.

On August 10, 2009, the Court (Judge John E. Jones III) declined to certify a class action or to grant habeas class relief but granted the plaintiffs' individual habeas petitions. Alli v. Decker, 644 F. Supp. 2d 535 (M.D. Pa. 2009). The court found that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to provide class relief, as the statute that authorized plaintiffs' detention explicitly barred class action to enjoin or restrain its application, but also interpreted that statute as authorizing mandatory detention only "for the period of time reasonably necessary to promptly initiate and conclude removal proceedings," and held that "[i]f an alien detained pursuant to [the statute] makes a showing via a habeas petition that detention is no longer reasonable, the alien must be afforded a hearing before the habeas court at which the government bears the burden of justifying continued detention based on traditional bail factors such as the alien's risk of flight and potential danger to the community." Id. at 11-12. The court gave the parties twenty days to indicate whether they wanted to present testimony or evidence related to the reasonableness of the plaintiffs' detentions at a bail hearing.

Rather than do so, the parties came to an agreement whereby defendants would release the plaintiffs without requiring that they post bail. One plaintiff was released in late January of 2010 under minimal reporting requirements, and the other was released in late March of the same year, subject to electronic monitoring.

Christopher Schad - 06/04/2012


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