Letters from NYC

SF Chronicle, 11/28/01

INS IS GIVEN

MORE POWER

TO HOLD PEOPLE

The Justice Department has quietly tightened the rules that govern the detention of foreigners, letting the government keep them behind bars even after a federal immigration judge has ordered their release for lack of evidence.

The change allows the Immigration and Naturalization Service to automatically set aside any release order given by an immigration judge in cases where the INS believes an immigrant is a danger to the community or a flight risk. To have the ruling set aside, the INS simply must file a form announcing that it plans to appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals. If that board orders the immigrant released, the INS also can set aside that order under the new regulation by taking the case to the attorney general.

Immigration lawyers, who represent many of the 1,100 noncitizens arrested after the attacks on Sept. 11, are furious about the new rule, saying it deprives the detainees of the fundamental right of bond hearings.