The American Bar Association filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to urge affirmance of a lower court’s ruling that due process requires bond hearings for noncitizens who become subject to “unreasonably prolonged” detention while their immigration proceedings are underway.
The ABA’s brief points out that the individual liberty interest at stake — freedom from detention — is “the most elemental of liberty interests.”
The brief describes experiences from the ABA’s decades of representation of detained noncitizens through the ABA’s Immigration Justice Project (IJP), South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation
Project (ProBAR) and Detention Information Hotline.
The brief uses those experiences to explain the burdens that prolonged detentions place on immigrants, their families and counsel and how prolonged detentions complicate the ability of lawyers to obtain the information necessary to represent their noncitizen clients.
The brief argues that these experiences support a conclusion that due process requires a bond hearing for immigrants detained for an “unreasonably prolonged” time.
The ABA’s brief also explains how prolonged detention can lead noncitizens to abandon bona fide, congressionally authorized claims for relief from removal, as individuals, increasingly desperate to be released from extended confinement, make the reasonable decision to abandon an uncertain future benefit for immediate release. It asserts that prolonged detention, thus, undermines meaningful access to counsel and the fair adjudication of removal proceedings.
Online: https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2026/09/aba-amicus-brief-genalo-v-gm/
The ABA’s brief points out that the individual liberty interest at stake — freedom from detention — is “the most elemental of liberty interests.”
The brief describes experiences from the ABA’s decades of representation of detained noncitizens through the ABA’s Immigration Justice Project (IJP), South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation
Project (ProBAR) and Detention Information Hotline.
The brief uses those experiences to explain the burdens that prolonged detentions place on immigrants, their families and counsel and how prolonged detentions complicate the ability of lawyers to obtain the information necessary to represent their noncitizen clients.
The brief argues that these experiences support a conclusion that due process requires a bond hearing for immigrants detained for an “unreasonably prolonged” time.
The ABA’s brief also explains how prolonged detention can lead noncitizens to abandon bona fide, congressionally authorized claims for relief from removal, as individuals, increasingly desperate to be released from extended confinement, make the reasonable decision to abandon an uncertain future benefit for immediate release. It asserts that prolonged detention, thus, undermines meaningful access to counsel and the fair adjudication of removal proceedings.
Online: https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2026/09/aba-amicus-brief-genalo-v-gm/
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