Supreme Court to address asylum bids

Case involves 1996 ‘expedited removal’ process for migrants if claims denied

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Trump administration appeal that could bolster the government's ability to deport migrants quickly after their asylum bids are rejected.

In taking up a politically charged issue, the justices said they'll review a lower court's conclusion that people who enter the country illegally have a broad right under the U.S. Constitution to make their case to a federal judge before being deported.

The case centers on "expedited removal," a streamlined deportation process set up by Congress in 1996.

Right now, those eligible include thousands of people who every year are arrested within 100 miles of the border less than two weeks after crossing and then are deemed by immigration officials not to have a credible fear of being persecuted if they are deported. The process gives federal judges only a limited role.

In March, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Constitution guarantees a Sri Lankan man arrested near the Mexican border a "meaningful opportunity" to show he met the criteria for asylum.

However, in its appeal, the Trump administration said the 9th Circuit ruling would "impose a severe burden" on the U.S. immigration system.

"Such review would further strain the government's limited resources and prevent expedited removal from being expedited at all," argued U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer.

The appeal doesn't directly concern the Trump administration's effort to expand the expedited removal program to cover people who've been in the U.S. as long as two years and are no longer near the border. A federal judge in Washington temporarily blocked that expansion in September.

The case involves Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, who says he would be subject to persecution as an ethnic Tamil if he were returned to Sri Lanka. Thuraissigiam says he went into hiding and then fled the country after a group of men kidnapped and beat him in 2014. He crossed into the U.S. near San Ysidro, Calif., and was arrested 25 yards north of the border.

In its ruling, the 9th Circuit said Thuraissigiam could invoke the Constitution's suspension clause, which protects the right of people to file so-called habeas corpus petitions challenging their detention. The appeals court said its ruling was consistent with the 2008 Supreme Court decision that allowed habeas petitions by inmates being held at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

"As a person detained within U.S. borders, he was entitled to invoke the suspension clause to challenge his expedited removal order," Thuraissigiam's lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union told the Supreme Court.

Under the expedited removal system, an asylum officer makes an initial determination of whether the person faces a credible fear of persecution. If the officer concludes that no credible fear exists, a supervisor reviews the case, and the asylum seeker can then turn to an immigration judge within the Homeland Security Department.

Thuraissigiam's lawyers say the hearing before the immigration judge often lasts just a few minutes and almost always occurs without witnesses. By law, that hearing must take place no later than seven days after the asylum officer's determination.

The migrant may then turn to federal court, but U.S. immigration law effectively limits that review to claims of mistaken identity, the ACLU lawyers say.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments early next year and rule by July. The case is Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, 19-161.

A Section on 10/19/2019

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