Supreme court gives Trump victory on detaining immigrants with criminal convictions

Court rules 5-4 that authorities can detain immigrants awaiting deportation anytime after they have completed prison terms

The US supreme court on Tuesday endorsed US government authority to detain immigrants awaiting deportation at any time – potentially even years – after they have completed prison terms for criminal convictions, handing Donald Trump a victory as he pursues hardline immigration policies.

The court ruled 5-4, with its conservative justices in the majority and its liberal justices dissenting, that federal authorities could pick up such immigrants and place them into indefinite detention at any time, not just immediately after they finish their prison sentences.

The ruling, authored by the conservative justice Samuel Alito, leaves open the possibility of individual immigrants challenging the federal law involved in the case on constitutional grounds if they are detained long after they have completed their sentences.

In dissent, the liberal justice Stephen Breyer questioned whether the US Congress when it wrote the law “meant to allow the government to apprehend persons years after their release from prison and hold them indefinitely without a bail hearing”.

The Trump administration had appealed against a lower court ruling in the case that favored immigrants, a decision it said would undermine the government’s ability to deport immigrants who have committed crimes. Trump has backed limits on legal and illegal immigrants since taking office in January 2017.