Miranda v. Garland

• Decision Date: 12 May 2022
• Docket Number: 20-1828
• Parties: Marvin Dubon MIRANDA; Ajibade Thompson Adegoke; Jose De La Cruz Espinoza, Plaintiffs – Appellees, v. Merrick B. GARLAND, Attorney General; Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Secretary; Matthew T. Albence, Deputy Director and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director; David L. Neal, Director; Janean Ohin, Acting Director; William Delauter, Corrections Bureau Chief; Jack Kavanagh, Director; Donna Bounds, Warden, Defendants – Appellants. Constitutional Accountability Center ; Legal Aid Justice Center; the Roundtable of Former Immigration Judges; American Immigration Lawyers Association-DC; Ayuda, Inc.; Thirty Social Science Scholars and Researchers, Amici Supporting Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

34 F.4th 338

Marvin Dubon MIRANDA; Ajibade Thompson Adegoke; Jose De La Cruz Espinoza, Plaintiffs – Appellees,

v. Merrick B. GARLAND, Attorney General; Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Secretary; Matthew T. Albence, Deputy Director and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director; David L. Neal, Director; Janean Ohin, Acting Director; William Delauter, Corrections Bureau Chief; Jack Kavanagh, Director; Donna Bounds, Warden, Defendants – Appellants.Constitutional Accountability Center ; Legal Aid Justice Center; the Roundtable of Former Immigration Judges; American Immigration Lawyers Association-DC; Ayuda, Inc.; Thirty Social Science Scholars and Researchers, Amici Supporting Appellees.

No. 20-1828

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: October 27, 2021

Decided: May 12, 2022

Amended: May 19, 2022

ARGUED: Courtney Elizabeth Moran, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellants. Carmen Gloria Iguina Gonzalez, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, Washington, D.C., for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Acting Assistant Attorney General, William C. Peachey, Director, Samuel P. Go, Assistant Director, Susan M. Imerman, Office of Immigration Litigation, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellants. Nicholas T. Steiner, Sonia Kumar, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF MARYLAND, Baltimore, Maryland; Michael K.T. Tan, ACLU FOUNDATION IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS PROJECT, New York, New York; Jenny Kim, Melody Vidmar, Adina Appelbaum, Claudia Cubas, CAPITAL AREA IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS COALITION, Washington, D.C.; Deborah K. Marcuse, Clare J. Horan, Austin L. Webbert, Whittney L. Barth, Lucy Zhou, Baltimore, Maryland, Saba Bireda, SANFORD HEISLER SHARP, LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellees. Elizabeth B. Wydra, Brianne J. Gorod, Brian R. Frazelle, Dayna J. Zolle, CONSTITUTIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY CENTER, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Constitutional Accountability Center. Andrew J. Ewalt, Amna Arshad, Justin C. Simeone, Andrew T. Bulovsky, Washington, D.C., Hannah Khalifeh, FRESHFIELDS BRUCKHAUS DERINGER US LLP, New York, New York; Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Rebecca Wolozin, Kristin Donovan, LEGAL AID JUSTICE CENTER, Falls Church, Virginia, for Amicus Legal Aid Justice Center. Madeline J. Cohen, Theodore A. Howard, WILEY REIN LLP, Washington, D.C., for Amicus The Roundtable of Former Immigration Judges. Rene Kathawala, ORRICK, HERRINGTON & SUTCLIFFE LLP, New York, New York, for Amici Thirty Social Science Scholars and Researchers. Sam Bragg, ALSTON & BIRD LLP, Dallas, Texas, for Amici The Washington D.C. Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and Ayuda.

Before RICHARDSON and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges, and Michael F. URBANSKI, Chief United States District Judge for the Western District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge Quattlebaum wrote the opinion, in which Judge Richardson concurred in part and dissented in part, and Judge Urbanski concurred in part and dissented in part.

QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judge:

8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) permits the Attorney General to detain aliens¹ pending their removal hearings. And the Attorney General has adopted procedures for making that discretionary decision. Under those procedures, an alien is given notice and three opportunities to seek release by showing they are neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.

A district court determined that a class of aliens had a likelihood of establishing that those procedures violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. That court then issued a preliminary injunction ordering, on a class-wide basis, that to continue detaining an alien under § 1226(a), the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that an alien is either a flight risk or a danger to the community. The district court also required immigration judges, again on a class-wide basis, to consider an alien's ability to pay any bond imposed and consider alternatives to detention.

However, under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1), the district court lacked jurisdiction to issue class-wide injunctive relief that enjoined or restrained the process used to conduct § 1226(a) bond hearings. As for the individual relief issued by the district court, the detention procedures adopted for § 1226(a) bond hearings provide sufficient process to satisfy constitutional requirements. For that reason, the aliens are unable to establish a likelihood of success on their due process claims. Nor have they shown that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in their favor or that an injunction is in the public interest. Therefore, we vacate the district court's preliminary injunction order.

I.

A.

The Immigration and Nationality Act permits detention of aliens pending the outcome of removal proceedings. 8 U.S.C. § 1226 ; see also Jennings v. Rodriguez , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 830, 837, 200 L.Ed.2d 122 (2018). Separate provisions of § 1226 provide the government with authority to detain aliens. " Section 1226(a) sets out the default rule: The Attorney General may issue a warrant for the arrest and detention of an alien ‘pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed from the United States.’ " Jennings , 138 S. Ct. at 837 (citation omitted). This section also gives the Attorney General discretion to release an alien from custody on either a monetary bond or conditional parole. Id. " Section 1226(c), however, carves out a statutory category of aliens who may not be released under 1226(a)." Id. (emphasis in original). "Under § 1226(c), the ‘Attorney General shall take into custody any alien’ who falls into one of several enumerated categories involving criminal offenses and terrorist activities." Id. (citation omitted). Here, the challenge on appeal involves detention procedures under § 1226(a).

Even though the Attorney General may detain an alien during removal proceedings, the Act and the regulations adopted to implement its authority afford aliens three opportunities to seek release from detention. The first opportunity is with an immigration officer. Id. § 1225(a). An immigration officer is authorized to release the alien if the officer is satisfied that the alien is not a danger to the community or a flight risk. 8 C.F.R. § 236.1(c)(8). If the immigration officer decides to release an alien, the officer may set a bond or place conditions on the alien's release. Id. If an immigration officer denies bond, sets bond at an amount the alien believes is too high or sets alternative conditions to bond the alien contends are unreasonable, an alien may appeal the officer's bond determination to an immigration judge, giving the alien a second opportunity at release. See 8 C.F.R. §§ 236.1(d)(1), 1003.19(a), 1236.1(d)(1). A third opportunity comes if an alien is not satisfied with the immigration judge's decision. In that situation, an alien may appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals for another review. 8 C.F.R. §§ 236.1(d)(3), 1003.19(f), 1236.1(d)(3). At each step in this process, the government requires the alien to prove that he or she is not a danger to the community or a flight risk. 8 C.F.R. § 236.1(c)(8) ; 8 C.F.R. § 1236.1(c)(8) ; In re Guerra , 24 I. & N. Dec. 37, 38 (BIA 2006).

B.

Marvin Dubon Miranda, Aijbade Thompson Adegoke and Jose de la Cruz Espinoza challenge the detention procedures under § 1226(a) outlined above. Miranda, a citizen of El Salvador, entered the United States illegally in 2009 and has been here since then. He was convicted of second-degree assault in 2012 and of driving under the influence in 2017. After a second driving under the influence conviction, the government detained Miranda and commenced removal proceedings. Miranda requested a bond hearing where he was represented by counsel and presented letters in support of release from his family members, friends, coworkers and partner. But the immigration judge denied his bond request, concluding Miranda had not met his burden of showing that he was not a danger to his community. In denying bond, the judge relied on Miranda's prior convictions for driving under the influence and for second-degree assault.

Adegoke, a citizen of Nigeria, came to the United States in 2017 on a B2 Visa. After overstaying his visa, Adegoke was charged with theft at a grocery store. The state officials later dropped the charge but detained Adegoke until immigration officials could take custody of him. After the immigration officials refused Adegoke bond, he requested that an immigration judge review his bond denial. The immigration judge set bond at $15,000, but Adegoke claimed he could not afford to pay that amount.

Espinoza, a citizen of Mexico, came to the United States in 2008. Following an argument with his brother twelve years later, Espinoza was charged with two counts of second-degree assault and one count of malicious destruction of property valued at less than $1,000. After his arrest, the government transferred Espinoza from the county jail to an immigration detention center. At his bond hearing, where he, like Miranda, was counseled, an immigration judge set bond at $20,000 because of Espinoza's pending criminal charges.

C.

Neither Miranda, Adegoke nor Espinoza appealed the detention decisions of their respective immigration judges to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Instead, they petitioned the United States District Court for the District of Maryland for writs of habeas corpus claiming the government's procedures for conducting § 1226(a) bond hearings violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. They requested the following relief:

declaratory and injunctive relief that prohibits further detention without a constitutionally adequate bond hearing—that is, a hearing in which the government bears the burden to prove by clear and convincing evidence that detention is necessary

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