To avoid serious constitutional problems, the Court read an implicit limitation into the statute: the government may detain a noncitizen only for a period "reasonably necessary" to secure his removal. And to make that rule workable, the Court established a presumption. For the first six months, detention is presumptively reasonable. After that period has passed and the alien "provides good reason to believe that there is no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future," the burden shifts to the government to provide evidence sufficient to rebut that showing.
[The individual in question has been held for seven months.]
[But] The government had a very real potential opportunity to make a case that Castellanos-Gorra could, in fact, be deported.
That opportunity was apparently squandered.
... the Court ordered the Government to provide more details about those attempted removals. The Government's response? Crickets. Nothing was filed in response to the Court's order. Because the Government offers nothing to suggest removal is more likely now than it was months ago, Castellanos-Gorra must be released.
"[T]his Court is bound by the law," the order goes on. "And the law is clear:
the Government cannot lock individuals in a cell indefinitely as a workaround for a stalled deportation process, nor can it use indefinite detention simply to placate popular opinion. The Constitution cannot be ignored just because the facts are frustrating."