Immigration Article of the Day: The Prospect of Release from Immigration Detention Prevents Self-Deportation by David Hausman

The Prospect of Release from Immigration Detention Prevents Self-Deportation by David Hausman 

Abstract
People in immigration detention confront a choice: they can give up and be deported or fight on and, if they win, be released within the United States. I study a judicial decision that made bond hearings available after six months of detention in some places but not others. I find that the prospect of release on bond made detainees more likely to fight their cases for at least six months. Conditional on being detained at least six months, release made people more likely to appear in immigration court and win their cases: fewer than half of those released were ordered deported within the next decade. This is the first causal evidence that immigration detention leads people to give up on cases that they might win outside detention. That matters given recent policy changes that increase immigration detention capacity and end access to bond hearings.