[JURIST] The Supreme Court [official website] heard arguments [transcript, PDF] in Jennings v. Rodriguez [SCOTUSblog materials], a case which will determine whether or not non-citizen aliens may be held indefinitely without a bond hearing on Tuesday.

Specifically, the court will decide if alien who are seeking admission into the county and are subject to mandatory detention must be afforded bond hearings; if criminal or terrorist aliens subject to mandatory detention are afforded bond hearings if their detention lats six months or longer; and an alien is entitled to release after being detained for six months unless the government can establish by clear and convincing evidence that the government is a flight risk or a danger to the community.

The left-leaning justices occupied much of the discussion and voiced concerns over the government’s ability to indefinitely hold immigrants without a hearing while the court’s righ-leaning justices questioned whether the court should be imposing deadlines for hearings in immigration matters.

The left-leaning justices questioned Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart, counsel for the petitioners, extensively on why alien detainees should be treated differently than individuals being detained during criminal proceedings.

The right-leaning justices then questioned Ahilan Arulanantham [official profile] of the American Civil Liberties Union [advocacy website], counsel for the respondents, on what the government and society would gain if the Supreme Court upheld the Ninth Circuit’s [official website] bright-line six-month detention rule outlined in the court’s 2015 decision [JURIST report].

A video of the oral arguments [CSPAN video] will soon be uploaded by CSPAN.

This is the second time the court will be hearing argument in this matter. The supreme court ordered re-argument [JURIST report] in June.