Reno v. Flores

United States Supreme Court
507 U.S. 292 (1993)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

A federal regulation authorizing the detention of unaccompanied alien juveniles in licensed, non-punitive, institutional settings, in lieu of release to unrelated adults when parents, legal guardians, or specified close relatives are unavailable, does not facially violate the substantive or procedural due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.

Facts:

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) arrests thousands of unaccompanied alien juveniles each year.
The parties agree that the INS must ensure these minors are cared for while their deportation proceedings are pending.
In response to litigation challenging a regional policy, the INS promulgated a nationwide regulation, 8 CFR § 242.24, governing the detention and release of these juveniles.
The regulation establishes a preference for releasing juveniles to a parent, legal guardian, or an adult relative such as a brother, sister, aunt, uncle, or grandparent.
Release to other adults who are not relatives or legal guardians is permitted only in 'unusual and compelling circumstances' at the discretion of senior INS officials.
If a juvenile is not released, the regulation requires placement in a licensed shelter-care facility operated in an open setting and designed to provide for the child's welfare.
A class of alien juveniles challenged this regulation, arguing for a right to be released to any 'responsible adult' rather than be held in an institutional facility.

Procedural Posture:

A class of unaccompanied alien juveniles, led by Jenny Lisette Flores, sued the INS in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, challenging its policy on releasing detained minors.
After the INS promulgated a new nationwide regulation (8 CFR § 242.24), the class action continued as a challenge to this new rule.
The District Court granted summary judgment for the Flores class, ruling that the regulation violated due process and enjoining its enforcement.
The INS appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
A divided three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court.
The Ninth Circuit then reheard the case en banc, vacated the panel's opinion, and affirmed the District Court’s decision invalidating the regulation.
The INS, as petitioner, sought and was granted a writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Issue:

Does a federal regulation that generally permits the release of detained alien juveniles only to parents, legal guardians, or close relatives, and otherwise requires their detention, violate the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause by infringing on a fundamental right to be free from custody or by failing to require individualized hearings on the child's best interests?

Opinions:

Majority - Justice Scalia

No. The INS regulation does not violate the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. The asserted right of a child in government custody to be placed with a willing private custodian rather than in a government-selected child-care institution is not a fundamental right deeply rooted in the nation's history and tradition. Because no fundamental right is implicated, the regulation need only be rationally connected to a legitimate government interest, which it is—namely, preserving and promoting the welfare of the child. The 'best interests of the child' standard is not the sole constitutional criterion for government custody; so long as the institutional custody is decent, humane, and non-punitive, it is constitutionally 'good enough.' Procedurally, due process is satisfied by providing juveniles with the right to request a hearing before an immigration judge to review the custody determination; an automatic hearing is not required. The regulation is also a reasonable exercise of the Attorney General’s broad statutory discretion, as the agency can rely on reasonable presumptions about suitable custodians to achieve its goal of protecting juvenile welfare without being forced to conduct individualized home studies for every potential unrelated custodian.

Dissenting - Justice Stevens

Yes. The regulation violates the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. The right at issue is the fundamental right to be free from institutional confinement, not merely the right to a specific custodian. The government bears the burden of proving that such detention is necessary, and its justifications of administrative convenience and a supposed interest in the children's welfare are pretextual and insufficient to justify this wholesale deprivation of liberty. Due process demands individualized hearings to determine whether detention is actually necessary for a particular child, rather than reliance on a blanket presumption against release to responsible, unrelated adults. The regulation also contravenes congressional policy, as expressed in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, which establishes a clear preference for releasing juveniles to responsible parties over detaining them.

Concurring - Justice O'Connor

No. The regulation is facially constitutional. Children possess a core, constitutionally protected liberty interest in freedom from institutional confinement, which lies within the core of the Due Process Clause. However, on this facial challenge, the INS program survives heightened due to process scrutiny. The absence of available parents or guardians, combined with the humane conditions of confinement guaranteed by the settlement agreement in this case, provides a legitimate justification for the government's exercise of its 'parens patriae' role. Because the program is rationally connected to the government's interest in the child's welfare and is not punitive, it does not, on its face, violate the Constitution.

Analysis:

This decision significantly defines the constitutional limits on the government's power to detain non-citizen juveniles. By rejecting the 'best interests of the child' as a constitutional mandate for custody arrangements, the Court established that 'good enough' institutional care can suffice, reinforcing the government's 'parens patriae' authority. The ruling also strengthened the executive branch's discretion in immigration matters, allowing agencies to use categorical rules and presumptions for administrative efficiency, even when fundamental liberty interests are implicated. This precedent makes facial challenges to government detention policies more difficult, as it prioritizes the overall reasonableness of the regulatory scheme over the need for individualized determinations in every case.

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