Immigration detentions can last for months, years

Time limits don’t apply in deportation appeals

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Olusegun Olatunji paid a $40,700 fine, did three months in a halfway house and spent a year on probation for selling counterfeit hats out of an Indianapolis shopping mall. Then, since the Nigerian native had overstayed a work visa 30 years ago, immigration officials detained him to await deportation in 2014.

More than three years later, he’s still waiting. He’s moved among six immigration detention centers, including his ongoing second stay at a county jail in Alabama that critics call a black hole for complicated deportation cases.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained more than 100,000 immigrants during the 2017 fiscal year, holding them an average of 34 days before releasing or deporting them, federal records show. Average length of detention was 22 days in fiscal year 2016.

But some are held for months or years because of pending appeals or delayed deportations — time that could increase after President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Many of the longest-running cases involve immigrants such as Olatunji who have been convicted of committing a nonimmigration crime but appeal their deportation. Olatunji, who like many in the system has no attorney, said he wants to stay to be able to support his 15-year-old U.S.born son’s college education.

“Until the last moment I’ll be fighting for him. I told him I don’t care how long it takes, until I’ve exhausted all the options,” Olatunji said from the Etowah County Detention Center.

Immigrant advocates argue that detainees have rights equal to criminal defendants awaiting trial in jail, a notion that U.S. courts have generally rejected.

Unlike convicts serving out a defined sentence, however, “these folks are not knowing when their time will be up,” said Donald Anthonyson, director of the national advocacy organization Families for Freedom.

In February, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out a lower-court decision that gave detained immigrants the right to a bond hearing after six months; most criminal defendants get such a hearing within days.

ICE declined a request for an interview but said that the government can suspend the three-month time limit for deportation if the detainee fails to apply for travel documents or, according to immigration law, “conspires or acts to prevent” their deportation.

The Associated Press Olusegun Olatunji, a native of Nigeria, and his son, Micah, at a Denny’s restaurant in Bloomington, Ind., in 2007. Olatunji overstayed a work visa 30 years ago. In 2013, he was convicted of selling counterfeit hats and received a deportation order.