The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that
the government can indefinitely detain certain immigrants who claim they will be persecuted or tortured
if they are deported back to their countries of origin.
Although the three Liberal judges disagreed, the majority of six Conservative justices held that these immigrants
do not have the right to a hearing to try to get bail while their claims are being evaluated.
Judge Samuel Alito wrote in the court ruling that "these foreigners do not have the right to a bail hearing."
The decision reverses what the Virginia-based Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had ruled.
More than 900 Central Americans, including several children and babies, were deported from Mexico in 24 hours
May 27, 202100: 38
The case at hand,
Johnson v.
Guzman Chavez,
was introduced by a group of immigrants who had been previously deported.
When they were detained after illegally re-entering the United States, they claimed that they would be persecuted, tortured or killed by gangsters in El Salvador if they were returned.
An immigration officer determined that the immigrants had a "reasonable fear" for their safety if they returned to their countries, which sets in motion
an evaluation process that can take months or years.
Going into a technical area of immigration law, the judges said these people
must be detained for at least 90 days
under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
