# Grant's Law: Plain Language Summary

Grant's Law would require federal immigration authorities to automatically detain anyone who is in the country illegally and gets arrested for certain crimes. Right now, immigration officials have some flexibility in deciding whether to hold someone in custody while their case is being processed. This bill would remove that flexibility for specific situations—if you're undocumented and arrested for crimes that could make you deportable (like felonies, crimes of violence, drug offenses, or other serious crimes), immigration authorities would have to keep you in custody rather than releasing you while your case moves forward.

The bill also includes a provision about what happens if someone is arrested but not convicted. If an undocumented person is detained under this law but then acquitted or the charges are dropped, immigration authorities would still have to keep holding them until removal proceedings are completed and they're actually deported. This means someone could remain in custody even if they're found not guilty of the crime they were arrested for, as long as they're in the country illegally.

Additionally, Grant's Law would speed up the deportation process for people detained under these circumstances. Immigration authorities would have to complete removal proceedings within 90 days of detaining someone under this law, rather than the current timeline which can take much longer. This means the entire process from arrest to deportation would move faster for undocumented immigrants arrested for serious crimes. The practical effect is that people in this situation would spend less time waiting in the system, but they would also have less time to prepare their legal defense or explore other options.

Grant’s Law

Biggs, Andy

Grant's Law This bill requires the Department of Justice to detain any alien found to be unlawfully present in the United States and arrested for various crimes that would render the alien deportable or inadmissible. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may release the alien to an appropriate authority for proceedings related to the arrest, but DHS must resume custody for any period that the alien is not in such authority's custody. If the alien is not convicted of crimes for which the alien was arrested, DHS must continue to detain the alien until removal proceedings are completed. DHS must complete such removal proceedings within 90 days.