Ninth Circuit Presses DOJ on Immigrant Mandatory Detention

A Ninth Circuit judge Wednesday hammered a DOJ attorney with questions about the Trump administration’s newly asserted authority to detain thousands of noncitizens without the possibility of bond.

At issue is the Trump administration’s new interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a legal stance that has become a crucial tool in Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

The law has for decades made a distinction between noncitizens trying to come in at the border and those already living here, said Judge Margaret McKeown, a Clinton appointee, and the government has long conducted bond hearings for noncitizens apprehended in the interior ...