The United States government maintains the largest immigration detention system in the world. In recent years, particularly since the Trump Administration’s implementation of increasingly harsh immigration detention policies, the system has come under scrutiny by policymakers, advocacy groups, and media actors, prompting many to sound the alarm about a “crisis” of immigration detention. The Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Jennings v. Rodriguez, a case that dealt with prolonged detention of immigrants, has exacerbated this crisis by limiting the avenues through which immigrants may challenge their detention by the United States government for many months or even years. This Current Development offers a primer on the American immigration detention apparatus, with a focus on prolonged detention, and explores how lower courts have dealt with prolonged immigration detention challenges in the wake of Jennings.

Continue Reading Making Sense of Prolonged Immigration Detention in a Post-Jennings World