A pending federal decision could send illegal immigrants trying to make Charlotte their home to jail indefinitely as soon as agents catch them at the U.S. border.
Right now, many of those immigrants are released on bond while they wait for formal deportation hearings, but U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is considering eliminating bond altogether.
In recent weeks, he referred a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals to himself for "review of issues relating to the authority to hold bond hearing for certain aliens screened for expedited removal proceedings."
Charlotte immigration attorney Ben Snyder said this is the latest move by the federal government to try and keep illegal immigrants out of the U.S.
"The desired effect will be to discourage people from seeking asylum in the United States to begin with," he said. "It will make it much much more difficult for people with genuine, credible asylum claims to win their case."
He said over the last several years, most of his clients spent, at most, two or three months in jail. Those people were eventually released on bond, which allowed them to work and improve their chances, he said.
"It's going to be even more difficult," Snyder said. "We're talking $5,000, $10,000 to have the privilege of pursuing their case on the outside of a jail with an attorney and with access to witnesses and evidence."
North and South Carolina immigration hearings take place at Immigration Court in Charlotte. It's among the toughest in the country with a deportation rate of almost 90 percent, which is the third highest in the country, according to records collected by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
That deportation rate, which is well above the national average, already makes it difficult for people trying to seek asylums related to dangers in their home countries.
If the attorney general approves the change, all illegal immigrants caught by border agents would go right to jail and stay there through the entire process, according to Snyder. The deportation process as it stands takes two years on average.
"I think it could and would likely be applied unfairly," Snyder said. "This is a further erosion of the due process rights that our immigration system is required to afford to foreign nationals. There are due process rights that are raised with this issue."
We reached out to the U.S. Department of Justice Wednesday and are still waiting on the agency's formal response. Attorney General Sessions is expected to make a decision in the coming weeks.
