WASHINGTON — The United States government agreed she would probably be tortured if it sent her back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It detained her anyway, for more than a year. And when an immigration judge finally released her on a $1,500 bond in March, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled last week that the judge never had the power to open the door.
That case is one of five decisions and rules issued out of Falls Church between Aug. 14 and Aug. 28 that, taken together, rewrote the practical rules of deportation defense — who gets a bond hearing, how long you get to find a lawyer, how many times you can ask a court to look again, and what it costs to try. None of it required a vote in Congress. Almost none of it was covered outside practitioner listservs. Here are the five, in the order they will hurt: