Nielsen v. Preap

Nielsen v. Preap
Nielsen v. Preap
	Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 10, 2018; Decided March 19, 2019
Full case name	Kirstjen M. Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security, et al. v. Mony Preap, et al.
Docket no.	16-1363
Citations	586 U.S. (more) 139 S. Ct. 954; 203 L. Ed. 2d 333
Argument	Oral argument
Decision	Opinion
Case history
Prior	Preap v. Johnson, 303 F.R.D. 566 (N.D. Cal. 2014); affirmed, 831 F.3d 1193 (9th Cir. 2016); cert. granted, 138 S. Ct. 1279 (2018); Khoury v. Asher, 3 F. Supp. 3d 877 (W.D. Wash. 2014); affirmed, 667 F. App'x 966 (9th Cir. 2016); cert. granted, 138 S. Ct. 1279 (2018);
Holding
	The government has the power to detain, at any time, undocumented immigrants that have committed certain crimes that could lead to their deportation, even if they were not detained by immigration authorities upon release from criminal custody.
Court membership
	Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg; Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito; Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan; Neil Gorsuch · Brett Kavanaugh
Case opinions
Majority	Alito (Parts I, III–A, III–B–1, and IV), joined by Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh
Plurality	Alito (Parts II and III–B–2), joined by Roberts, Kavanaugh
Concurrence	Kavanaugh
Concurrence	Thomas (in part), joined by Gorsuch
Dissent	Breyer, joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan

Nielsen v. Preap, No. 16-1363, 586 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the detention of legal immigrants with criminal histories. In a 5–4 vote, the Court ruled that the government has the power to detain, at any time, immigrants that have committed certain crimes that could lead to their deportation, even if they were not detained by immigration authorities upon release from criminal custody.

The decision was heavily based on statutory construction.