The federal government can’t detain a Pakistani citizen who has been in America for three years, a Philadelphia judge has ruled.
Aqib Hussain came to the United States in 2023 illegally, but his removal proceedings remain pending. That didn’t stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement from arresting him at a routine check-in in Philadelphia.
He challenged his detention at the Federal Detention Center, and Judge Karen Marston wrote that she is joining “the hundreds of other courts that have found” the Department of Homeland Security’s mandatory detention policy violates both the Due Process Clause and the Federal Immigration and Nationality Act.
Immigrant rights groups held a vigil for Renee Good, the woman shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week. The ICE roundups instituted by the Trump administration have angered Americans nationwide, though ICE in October heralded the removal of an illegal alien who organized a deadly attack on a Philadelphia high school student in 1994.
As for Hussain, he argued that his detention without a bond hearing was improper – something approximately 300 courts have agreed with.
“At the time of his arrest, Hussain had been present in the United States for approximately two years and was not actively ‘seeking admission,’” Marston wrote.
“Instead, his detention is governed by § 1226, which ‘grants the Attorney General discretion to detain or release a noncitizen on bond while removal proceedings are pending.’”
And when the government detains an illegal alien, he or she has the right to a bond hearing. Hussain has not had one, and Marston prohibited the government from re-detaining him.
It can arrest him in seven days, but it must provide him with notice and opportunity to be heard at a bond hearing before an immigration judge.
That judge will decide if Hussain is a flight risk or danger to the community.
