Detained Cases and Bonds

If bond is granted, and the government does not seek to prevent the bond from
being posted(they do have a rarely used process to do this), the person’s friends
or family post the bond at a District Office for USICE.  The person posting bond
must show identification, and the bond must be posted through  US Money Orders
or through an official bank check made payable to the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security. The person posting bond must sign it, and it must be countersigned by a USICE Official, usually located at the Deportation Office. The bond will then be faxed to the Detention Facility and the detained non-citizen is released.

Whether the case proceeds as a detained case in a prison facility or as a non-detained case with the non-citizen out on bond, there will be a series of hearings, called Master Calendar Hearings, in which the non-citizen will be given an
opportunity to explain to the Court whether he or she admits or denies the charged immigration violations(which are civil and not criminal), and what relief(right to stay
in the United States) the non-citizen will be seeking. The non-citizen will be given a definite time period in which to make all written applications for  relief from removal
to the Immigration Judge and Court. After all preliminary matters are taken care of, including pre-Merits hearing motions, the Immigration Judge will set the case in for
a Merits Hearing at which time the Immigration Judge will hear all evidence from the non-citizen and the government which has legal relevance, and at the end of the hearing, the non-citizen will either be allowed to stay, granted voluntary departure
(if available) or ordered deported.

While every non-citizen has the right to defend themselves without an attorney in immigration removal proceedings, the complexities of the law and procedures
almost always point to the fact that the non-citizen is well advised to proceed only with a skilled and knowledgeable immigration attorney representing him or her.

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