The Supreme Court is considering whether to hear a case that could reshape how long the federal government can detain noncitizens with criminal records while their deportation cases play out, and whether those detainees are entitled to a bond hearing.
The Trump administration has petitioned the justices to review Genalo v. D.C., which centers on a 62-year-old Dominican citizen identified in court papers as D.C., who has four criminal convictions and has been held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while fighting removal.
At issue is a Second Circuit Court of Appeals precedent requiring the government to grant a bond hearing once mandatory immigration detention becomes what the court calls “unreasonably prolonged.” Under that rule, the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the detainee poses a flight risk or a danger to the community before continued detention can be justified.
D.C.’s record includes convictions dating to 1997, when he was charged with selling and possessing a controlled substance, failed to appear for trial, and was convicted by a jury and sentenced in absentia to three to nine years — though he did not serve that sentence until 2024. In 2007 he was charged with possessing a forged instrument after presenting false identification to police and again failed to appear in court. In 2016 he faced charges from a domestic dispute, including second-degree strangulation, third-degree assault and acting in a manner to injure a child under 17; he pleaded guilty to criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation, resolved the earlier forged-instrument case with a guilty plea, and later that year pleaded guilty to criminal contempt.
He was arrested on the outstanding 1998 drug warrant in April 2024. After completing his state sentence in September 2025, ICE detained him as his removal proceedings continued. A district court ordered that he receive a bond hearing under the binding Second Circuit precedent but denied his separate request for immediate release. The administration is now asking the Supreme Court to take up the case before the Second Circuit itself rules, an unusual step known as certiorari before judgment.
How the case reached this point
The administration turned to D.C.’s case after two other detainees caught up in the same legal fight had their cases become moot. Carol Williams Black, detained roughly seven months and convicted of sexually abusing a child in 2000, received a final order of removal and left the country. The Supreme Court had granted review only as to a second detainee, G.M.
G.M., a lawful permanent resident from the Dominican Republic, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in May 2015 after being accused of attacking and robbing a man in New York City in 2012. He served 19 months of a two-year sentence before release on parole in December 2016. ICE arrested him at his home on Oct. 5, 2020, and held him 21 months without a bond hearing while removal proceedings continued.
His case was scheduled for argument Oct. 13, but in late August, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul granted G.M. a full and unconditional pardon for the assault conviction underlying his deportation case. Solicitor General John Sauer agreed the case was moot, and the Supreme Court dismissed it Sept. 11 without ruling on the merits. The administration then put forward D.C.’s case as a replacement, asking the justices to take up the same constitutional questions this term.
What’s at stake
Chad Mizelle, chair of litigation at the America First Policy Institute and a former acting associate attorney general and Justice Department chief of staff, said the case reaches beyond immigration law. “We are talking about criminal aliens here,” Mizelle said. “Those are individuals who have been accused of or convicted of an aggravated felony. Accused or convicted of murder. Accused or convicted of child rape. Accused or convicted of grievous harm upon another human being.”
“So these are the worst of the worst individuals,” Mizelle continued. “Do we want those individuals walking the streets, re-committing, harming other individuals?”
Mizelle argued Congress imposed mandatory detention on certain noncitizens with criminal records specifically to keep them in custody during removal proceedings, and warned the Second Circuit’s rule could give some detainees an incentive to drag out their cases long enough to qualify for a bond hearing.
Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, said the ruling would reach far beyond a single case. “This is not a question that’s only going to affect D.C., the criminal Dominican national at issue in this case,” she said. “This is an issue that’s going to affect criminal aliens across the country.” She said a win for D.C. would impose new hearings and resource demands on the government. “As we know, immigration cases, skipping out on showing up for court dates is incredibly common,” Severino said. “This is not something that I think the court ought to be granting on a regular basis that they’d be letting people out on bond simply on their word that they’re going to be coming back when they know that they are likely to be removed.”
Florida State University law professor Michael Morley said the case also turns on who bears the burden of proof for continued detention. “And so, if the Supreme Court winds up affirming what the Second Circuit held, that means it’s going to be harder for the government to be able to detain this particular population of criminal aliens or terrorism-linked aliens,” Morley said. “There are going to be situations where the government is not able to show that a particular person is either likely to flee or poses a risk of danger and this dangerousness by a heightened or clear and convincing standard.”
“It means that these criminal aliens who are already subject to removal proceedings are more likely to be released into the community while those underlying removal proceedings continue to make their way slowly through the adjudicative process,” Morley added.
The Supreme Court has not yet agreed to hear D.C.’s case.
