– in particular, the discretionary authority to
grant or deny employment authorization and
to set the conditions of supervision orders.
Moreover, there is currently no independent
judicial review of these discretionary decisions.
Final Orders of Removal and
Related Detention
Under current law, a person who has been ordered removed is detained for a 90-day period to facilitate the government’s ability to execute that removal order.91 Accordingly, even
in the case of an individual who has been
determined to be stateless, a country for removal would be assigned and the stateless
individual would be detained despite any real
expectation that the person will actually be
removed. In many cases, a stateless person
will be released under an order of supervision
at the end of the 90-day period,92 but this is
not always the case. In some cases, stateless
individuals are released after 90 days but
subsequently detained again, even though
nothing in their situation had changed.
© S. Rubin, Used by Permission
Once a final order of removal is issued, the
individual to be deported is responsible for
obtaining travel documents to return to his
or her country of origin. Even though under
U.S. law, the Department of Homeland Security has the authority to remove a non-citizen
without the permission of the country designated for removal, actual removal to that
country may be impracticable—even impossible—if the person cannot obtain a passport or travel document. Because a period of
detention almost invariably follows an order
of removal,90 persons whose removal orders
cannot be executed may spend extended periods of time in detention after all immigration procedures have ended while awaiting a
response from a country that feels no obligation to them.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of non-citizens, including some stateless individuals, are held in immigration detention
facilities
20
Citizens of Nowhere: