Keisy G.M. v. Decker

Background

Keisy G.M., a native and citizen of the Dominican Republic, was in removal proceedings and had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since October 5, 2020. He filed a habeas petition, which is a request for a court order addressing unlawful custody, challenging his continued detention without a bond hearing. He sought release unless the Government provided a constitutionally adequate bond hearing at which the Government would have to justify continued detention by clear and convincing evidence and the immigration judge would consider alternatives to detention.

The Government detained Keisy G.M. under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c), which generally requires detention during removal proceedings for certain noncitizens, including those removable because of an aggravated felony. The parties did not dispute that his conviction for second-degree assault qualified as an aggravated felony for purposes of that statute.

Keisy G.M. was arrested by ICE on October 5, 2020, and first appeared before an immigration judge eight days later. The immigration judge granted several adjournments requested by Keisy G.M. or his counsel, including requests to obtain counsel, prepare his case, file a motion to terminate the proceedings, and prepare applications for relief from removal. On March 18, 2021, the immigration judge denied his request for relief under the Convention Against Torture and ordered his removal to the Dominican Republic.

Keisy G.M. appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. His appeal was fully briefed, and the court stated that the appeal was proceeding at an appropriate pace and that a decision appeared forthcoming. He also had a pending application for a U visa, but the court explained that the application did not itself provide a defense to removal and was decided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services rather than ICE.

Legal Question

The question was whether Keisy G.M.’s continued detention without a bond hearing had become so unreasonable that it violated due process. Keisy G.M. urged the court to adopt a rule automatically requiring a bond hearing after six months of detention.

Court’s Analysis

The court rejected the proposed six-month bright-line rule. It held that the constitutional question required an individualized, fact-specific inquiry into the circumstances of the detention. Relevant considerations included the detention’s length, responsibility for delay, the defenses asserted against removal, the seriousness of the prior crime, the detention conditions, and whether the detention was likely to end soon.

Some circumstances favored Keisy G.M. His detention had lasted nearly fourteen months, and the court found that the conditions at the detention facilities were not meaningfully different from criminal incarceration. But the court concluded that these factors did not decide the issue by themselves.

The court found no unreasonable Government delay. It concluded that ICE and the immigration judge moved the case forward promptly, while most of the delay during the immigration-court proceedings resulted from six adjournments requested by Keisy G.M. or his counsel. The court also found no unreasonable delay in the Board of Immigration Appeals proceedings, noting that Keisy G.M. appealed four weeks after the immigration judge’s decision and obtained an extension of the briefing deadline.

The court also considered the status of the removal proceedings. The immigration judge had denied Keisy G.M.’s requested relief and ordered his removal, and the appeal was fully briefed. The court therefore expected that the detention was unlikely to continue much longer, unless Keisy G.M. lost before the Board and chose to seek further review. The court further concluded that the adverse removal decision supported the view that detention continued to serve the purpose of facilitating removal rather than another purpose.

Finally, the court determined that the seriousness of Keisy G.M.’s second-degree-assault conviction weighed against him. The conviction had resulted in a two-year prison sentence, of which he served one year and seven months, and it was the basis for mandatory detention under section 1226(c).

Disposition

The court held that Keisy G.M.’s continued detention did not violate due process at that time. It denied the petition in its entirety, did not reach Keisy G.M.’s arguments about the procedures required at a bond hearing, directed entry of judgment in the Government’s favor, directed that the caption be updated to replace Jean King as a respondent, and closed the case.