 |
|
In Jennings v. Rodriguez, the case's lead plaintiff, a legal permanent resident, pleaded guilty of misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance at age 24. The plaintiff was detained for three years. He was also convicted for joyriding as a teenager.
"The 91-page decision included a 33-page impassioned dissent by Justice Stephen Breyer, who read his dissent from the bench — a rare event," Yale-Loehr said.
Christina M. Fialho, executive director of Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC), thanked Breyer in a statement for his passionate dissent and called the decision "a dark moment in our nation's history."
"We are appalled by our nation's highest court. Rather than uphold the Declaration of Independence, the Supreme Court has decided to look the other way and uphold a 'legal fiction,' as Justice Breyer called it," Fialho said.
According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, there are more than 667,000 cases pending in immigration court, with an average backlog of almost two years.
The Trump administration has asked Congress to increase funding to detain more immigrants.
|
|
|
|
