Use this button to switch between dark and light mode.

Fewer Rights in Pennsylvania than Guantanamo: Some Reactions to Castro v. DHS - David Isaacson

September 14, 2016 (1 min read)

David Isaacson, Sept. 13, 2016 - "On August 29, 2016, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued its decision in Castro v. Dept. of Homeland Security, a consolidated set of habeas corpus petitions brought by asylum-seekers subject to expedited removal orders and detained within the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (likely at the Berks County Residential Center).  The Third Circuit held that the petitioners, who had been detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection shortly after crossing the border into the United States, did not have the constitutional right to challenge their detentions in federal court other than in a very limited way under8 U.S.C. §1252(e).  ...   Professor Steve Vladeck of the University of Texas School of Law (who I note, in the interest of full disclosure, was a law-school classmate of the author of this blog post) has described the Third Circuit’s opinion as “breathtaking”.  Professor Vladeck writes that it was “simply nuts” for the Third Circuit to conclude that under Boumediene “non-citizens physically present within the United States are less entitled to Suspension Clause protections than enemy belligerents captured on foreign battlefields and detained outside the territorial United States.”  This author is inclined to agree with that sentiment. ... The purpose of the Suspension Clause is to ensure that the government can be held to account in court when it detains someone, whether that someone is a suspected terrorist or a woman fleeing persecution with her child.  The Third Circuit panel in Castro denied the petitioners in the case that Constitutionally guaranteed ability to demonstrate that they were being held pursuant to an erroneous application or interpretation of the law.  We can hope, however, that the Third Circuit on rehearing en banc, or the Supreme Court on certiorari, may restore it to them."