Circuit Court Rules Government Can Detain on Immigration Grounds Pending Prosecution
The triumph of logic over obfuscation
By Andrew R. Arthur on December 18, 2019
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a decision last week reinstating an indictment against Keston Lett, a citizen and national of Trinidad and Tobago who was apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection entering the United States with more than two kilograms of cocaine. That decision is a triumph of logic over obfuscation.
CBP paroled Lett into the United States for criminal prosecution, and he was transferred to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in the Department of Justice. A criminal complaint was thereafter filed against him for importing cocaine in violation of federal law, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a detainer against him.
Subsequently, a grand jury issued an indictment charging Lett on the criminal grounds in the complaint. As the District Court order below reveals, on December 17, 2017, the court ordered Lett released on bond with electronic monitoring and travel restrictions. In accordance with the detainer, BOP released Lett to ICE custody. He was placed into removal proceedings on the grounds that he was inadmissible to the United States under section 212(a)(2)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), as a trafficker in a controlled-substance, a ground that does not require a conviction.
As the district court order states:
https://cis.org/Arthur/Circuit-Court-Rules-Government-Can-Detain-Immigration-Grounds-Pending-Prosecution
