Ahilan Nadarajah was detained as a terrorism suspect for nearly five years before he got to argue his case before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It only took a three-judge panel 10 days to order his release.
In a unanimous decision Friday, Judge Sidney Thomas wrote that federal immigration officials can't detain an asylum seeker indefinitely after an immigration court orders his release. Thomas wrote that the government's interpretation that a Supreme Court opinion allowed indefinite detention was "patently absurd."
"The general immigration detention statutes do not authorize the Attorney General to incarcerate detainees for an indefinite period," Thomas wrote. He was joined by Judge Richard Tallman and Senior U.S. District Judge James Fitzgerald of the District of Alaska, who sat by designation.
"By any analysis," Thomas wrote, "a five-year period of confinement of an alien who has not been charged with any crime, and who has won relief at every administrative level, is unreasonable under the standards set forth by the Supreme Court. Nor are we persuaded by the government's argument that because the Attorney General will someday review Nadarajah's case, his detention will at some point end, and so he is not being held indefinitely. No one can satisfactorily assure us as to when that day will arrive. Meanwhile, petitioner remains in detention."
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