Bond hearing after 5 ½ years in immigration detention facilities

On Friday, a US district court judge ordered that a Jamaican man who has been in immigration detention facilities since the last five-and-a-half years while facing deportation must be provided bond hearing in not more than sixty days.

Immigrants’ legal advocates said that they just hope the recent ruling from the US District Court will make way for many immigrants who have spent several months and years in detention without a single hearing in order to make out if their detention is reasonable.

An attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, Michael Tan, who also helped represent Errol Barrington Scarlett, said that there are about four-thousand people who are under prolonged immigration detention with no hearing. Scarlett also sued the US Department of Homeland Security Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with the help of the ALCU and two bono attorneys from Seyfarth Shaw, and claimed that his detention without any hearing is violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Scarlett was kept in detention facilities all through the legal proceedings and was not provided a bond hearing. As per documents of the court, the Department of Homeland and Security did four reviews of the case and found that he would be a threat to the community and if released, might also try to run away.

Tan said that the government stood firmly upon their statement that Mr. Scarlett would be kept under detention till a permanent solution is achieved.

Right now, the fate of Scarlett would again depend on a judge in immigration court, who will give a decision on whether he could be freed on bond and whether he will stay in the US.