Prieto-Romero

This appeal from the district court’s denial of Jose Manuel Prieto-Romero’s habe-as corpus petition concerns whether the government may continue to detain a legal permanent resident of the United States for over three years while he seeks administrative and judicial review of his removal order. We hold that this continued civil detention, although lengthy, is authorized by statute, and so we affirm the district court.

The facts of this case are straightforward and not disputed by either party. Prieto-Romero, a native and citizen of Mexico, has been a legal permanent resident of the United States since 1981. He was served with a notice to appear and detained by the Department of Homeland Security in February 2005. An immigration judge (“IJ”) found that Prieto-Rome-ro was a removable alien because he had been convicted of an aggravated felony in 1989. See 8 U.S.C. § 1227 (a)(2)(A)(iii) (providing for removal of an alien convicted of an aggravated felony, as defined by § 1101(a)(43)(A)). Prieto-Romero appealed the IJ’s ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”), which affirmed the removal order in September 2005. He then filed a timely petition for review in the Ninth…