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WEST VALLEY CITY — A Salt Lake man who has been detained for more than three years by immigration authorities as he fights deportation is scheduled to receive an individualized bond hearing on June 30 in Immigration Court.
Immigration Judge David C. Anderson set the bond hearing date at the conclusion of a brief hearing Tuesday with counsel for Martin Chairez-Castrejon and an attorney representing the Department of Homeland Security.
Chairez, a lawful permanent resident of the United States for more than 20 years, has been detained in the Utah County Jail on an Immigration Customs Enforcement hold since March 14, 2013.
Earlier that year, Chairez served 44 days in jail after pleading no contest to discharging a firearm during a fight in 2012.
Upon completing his sentence on the criminal matter, Chairez was transferred to ICE custody awaiting deportation proceedings. Three years, one month and four days later, he's still behind bars — 25 times longer than the criminal sentence that set the deportation proceedings into motion.
U.S. District Judge Jill Parrish decided in mid-May to grant Chairez an individualized bond hearing within 30 days. His attorney, Skyler Anderson, and DHS attorney Jeff Clark raised no objection to the June 30 hearing date.
The later date gives the judge time to read the briefs and documents recently filed with the court, which Clark said includes "an investigatory report from the Utah Highway Patrol" and gives the attorneys an opportunity to brief the court on the issue over who has the burden of proof whether Chairez's continued detention is necessary.
Skyler Anderson argued that the burden rests with the government, a point bolstered by Parrish's finding that Chairez's continued mandatory detention is "unreasonable."
But Clark said the issue of burden of proof is unclear so Chairez should bear the burden "by default."
Skyler Anderson countered that there is "no case law to support that position."
Judge Anderson initially offered to conduct the hearing on the afternoon of June 29 but informed the parties that Chairez would have to participate via a "televideo" link between the immigration court and the Utah County Jail, which contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold its detainees.
Addressing Clark, Judge Anderson said holding the hearing one day later meant "you will have to detain the applicant for another day at government expense."
With that, the judge gave the attorneys until June 16 to submit briefs on the burden of proof issue and other evidentiary matters.
Parrish, in granting the bond hearing, wrote that Chairez's continued mandatory detention is "unreasonable" and "has crossed the line."
A Department of Justice attorney argued that the delays could be attributed to Chairez's appeals of decisions by courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals.
But his attorney argued in federal court that Chairez's detention "became prolonged at the sixth-month mark. He can no longer be detained mandatory under (the U.S. Code on apprehension and detention of aliens.) He is now detained subject to the attorney general's discretion."
Starting on Oct. 30, 2015, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch referred Chairez's case to herself to review to determine how a recent Supreme Court decision on related issues should be applied to cases like Chairez’s. Those issues were originally raised in his motion for relief filed in 2013.
