We MUST keep tabs on these!
Isn't part of the point of bail to make more realistic the right to participate in one's own defense? And what about the potential broader precedent implications of giving the government multiple bites at the apple in imprisoning people? Issues of defendants' rights aren't simply about the defendant - they are about keeping the power of government accountable and within bounds, and restraining the potential for abuse of power.
The defendant was granted bail for the drug smuggling charge but not for any violations of US immigration laws. Let this illegal alien caught with cocaine in his bag be securely detained with legal immigration detainers while justice runs its course.
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I get the issue of infringing on constitutional protections, however I find it hard to sympathize with the plight of a drug dealer
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We clearly need more coke smugglers running around the country.
Mr. Letts was arrested by federal officers for possession of cocaine. They brought him to federal court for arraignment of the charges brought against him for that possession. The judge set bail, which Letts was able to make, but federal ICE took him into custody for unlawful entry or attempted unlawful entry into the USA. The facts underlying both arrests were the same. The judge is justified in complaining that the federal government used the ICE laws to accomplish what it was unable to do under federal bail law -- hold the defendant when he made bail.
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Did Keston Lett arrive in this country legally? He was going through customs when he got busted for drugs, so when is it that he became an 'illegal immigrant?' Bali should stand if he hasn't been convicted on the drug charge and arrived legally.
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Illegal immigration is a crime. If a person caught stealing is discovered to be an illegal alien, why would the commission of the first crime be ignored when prosecuting the second?
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Because being in the country illegally is not necessarily a crime (Arizona vs U.S. Supreme Court).
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Why is it that, the more power we are given, the more we tend to abuse it? Does it reflect the immaturity and insecurity of the individual having an undeserved hold over a defenseless victim, or just pettiness, a miserable jerk in need of ego confirmation? Can't we see that there is reciprocity in whatever we do, a give and take, the more you give the more you receive...and viceversa? Hate and division 'a la Trump' is no way to behave...and feel good about it...unless you are a narcissist with no feelings towards others, or a sick puppy with sadistic goals, who thrives by torturing others, and watch their suffering.
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Exactly because this administration has increased single parent families. How does that make America great again?
It reflects the lag between our current social organization and our DNA. Our brains are simply incapable of managing ourselves in our new-on-the-evolutionary-scale circumstances--massive overcrowding, groupings far larger than our historical sizes, deadly weapons in the hands of creatures only recently come off the savannah, and so on. Some individuals manage well, of course, but the species in general doesn't. See, for instance, the Republican Party's humiliating, apish support for Trump, and the similar apish support throughout the past few millenia that humans have shown for similarly terribly bad people.
By that standard, If I am released on bail for petty larceny I should be immune from being held on suspicion of murder. These are two separate and different offenses, and the bail hearing for the former has no bearing on the disposition of the latter.
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If a US citizen is arrested trying to smuggle in 2 kilos of cocaine, that person could presumably be released on bail.
If a person is here illegally, that person can be detained for deportation, especially if that person has been found doing something illegal (like smuggling in 2 kilos of cocaine).
It seems like these are 2 different things, so I don't understand why getting released on bail keeps you from being detained for something else. It's not as if only people here illegally get charged with a crime for smuggling in drugs, or only people why try to smuggle drugs get detained for deportation.
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It's taking 2 1/2 years to deport right now unless they can fast track. Super expensive.
Judge Irizarry's reasoning must also call into question the government's insistence that past crimes — some minor, some significant — for which immigrants have served their sentences can then also be used as the basis for the immigrants' deportation. The Immigration and Nationalities Act (INA) introduced the idea that immigrants convicted of a variety of crimes can and, in some cases, must be deported even if the crimes were committed before the INA's passage and were not a basis for deportation when committed and despite the fact that the immigrant has paid her or his debt to society. Here, again, it seems the government is getting constitutionally impermissible multiple bites at the same apple — punishing immigrants with criminal jail terms and punishing them again for the same offenses with the harsh added penalty of deportation.
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Kirk - "...punishing immigrants with criminal jail terms and punishing them again for the same offenses with the harsh added penalty of deportation."
"The U.S. Supreme Court has held that deportation is not punishment, but rather an administrative procedure whereby an illegal alien is returned to his homeland."
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Exactly because deportation is not a criminal but civil matter.
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If a person is here illegally, the Immigration and Nationality Act gives the government the power to detain and deport that person. The argument that the person is charged with another illegal act should prevent that detention is ludicrous.
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