The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a 1996 decision that allows legal immigrants to be held without bail while their deportation hearings progress.

In a narrow 5 to 4 vote, the Court chose to not to overrule the law, which orders the legal immigrants who have committed certain crimes to be detained even as they appeal their deportation.

“In the exercise of its broad power over naturalization and immigration, Congress regularly makes rules that would be unacceptable if applied to citizens,” wrote Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the Court’s ruling.

The actual case that called the law into question was Demore v. Kim, which involved legal permanent resident Hyung Joon Kim. Kim immigrated to the United States at age 6 in 1984. One day after he completed a sentence in California state prison for a petty theft he committed as a teenager in 1996, Kim was arrested and held without bail by immigration officials to await his deportation.

Rehnquist noted that in the Court’s opinion, Kim was challenging neither Congress’ general authority to remove criminal aliens from the United States, nor the fact that he himself was deportable, but rather being during deportation hearings was a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

“This Court has recognized detention during deportation proceedings as a constitutionally valid aspect of the deportation process,” Rehnquist wrote.

Thomas Archdeacon, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, said the ruling addressed a legitimate concern of Congress and immigration officials trying to deport convicted felons with lawful resident status.

“Legal resident aliens are allowed to stay in the U.S. as long as they don’t do certain things, and committing felonies is an example of one of those things,” Archdeacon said. “If you commit a crime that’s serious enough as a legal resident alien, you have always been able to be deported.”

Archdeacon said the New York Times story about the ruling was misleading because it seemed to report a distinction between lawful and unlawful aliens that doesn’t exist in the law.

Guidelines for what constitutes a deportable offense vary from case to case. The most closely followed rule for deporting someone is if that person committed a crime of moral turpitude, felony or crime that carries a jail sentence of more than one year.

“The question becomes: can the government hold that person after they have served time in prison while they wait for a hearing on their deportation,” Archdeacon said. “Civil libertarians are concerned because the person has paid their time for the crime and is continuing to be held. Clearly questions arise about how long a person can be held in this status, and whether being held negatively affects their ability to gather a viable defense for themselves.”

The deportation process itself can often become prolonged because in order to deport anyone, there must be a country willing to receive that person as a citizen. A person that was a revolutionary in their native land and immigrated to the United States only to commit an egregious offense might not be welcome back in their home country.

Archdeacon said the ruling affords immigration officials the same judicial tools that local district attorneys can wield to address flight risk. DA’s can ask for a suspect to be held without bail if there is thought to be a high risk of the detainee fleeing before the case comes to court.