The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, along with the national ACLU, American Immigration Council, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Public Counsel, and K&L Gates, LLP, have asked a federal court to immediately block the government from pursuing deportation proceedings against several children unless it ensures those youth have legal representation. The move comes as immigration courts are speeding up deportation hearings against children in an expedited process sometimes referred to as a “rocket docket.”
The groups filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of thousands of children challenging the federal government’s failure to provide them with lawyers in their deportation hearings. The preliminary injunction motion filed late last night specifically asks that the fast-approaching deportation proceedings for several of the named plaintiffs be forestalled until those children are provided with attorneys. The groups also asked the court to hear their motion for class certification as soon as possible, so that other unrepresented children may be protected as well.
“These children face an imminent threat of being deported, potentially to their death,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. “To force them to defend themselves against a trained prosecutor, with their lives literally on the line, violates due process and runs counter to everything our country stands for.”
The plaintiffs cited in the motion are:
- A 10-year-old boy, his 13-year-old brother, and 15-year-old sister from El Salvador, whose father was murdered in front of their eyes. The father was targeted because he and the mother ran a rehabilitation center for people trying to leave gangs.
- A 14-year-old girl who had been living with her grandparents, but was forced to flee El Salvador after being threatened and then attacked by gang members.
- A 15-year-old boy who was abandoned and abused in Guatemala, and came to the United States without any family or friends.
- A 17-year-old boy who fled gang violence and recruitment in Guatemala and now lives with his lawful permanent-resident father in Los Angeles.
“In the rush to schedule children’s immigration court hearings immediately, we cannot lose sight of the government’s obligation to ensure due process,” said Beth Werlin, deputy legal director of the American Immigration Council. “Many children are eligible to remain in the United States, but may be ordered deported simply because they do not understand our complex immigration laws and how to prove their claims.”
The government initiates immigration court proceedings against thousands of children each year. Some of these youth have lived in the U.S. for years, and many have fled violence and persecution in their home countries. President Obama recently stated that the government response to the influx of children coming across the southern border will include “fulfilling our legal and moral obligation to make sure we appropriately care for unaccompanied children who are apprehended.” And yet, thousands of children required to appear in immigration court must do so without an attorney.
“We argue that these children need legal representation in order to ensure that their legal rights to a full and fair hearing are not violated,” said Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. “Instead of protecting the children’s legal rights, the government has turned around and implemented an expedited deportation process that further undermines the already meager protections that exist.”
The lawsuit, J.E.F.M. v. Holder, was filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, Wash. It charges the U.S. Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Health and Human Services, Executive Office for Immigration Review and Office of Refugee Resettlement with violating the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause and the Immigration and Nationality Act’s provisions requiring a “full and fair hearing” before an immigration judge.
Talia Inlender, staff attorney with Public Counsel, a not-for-profit law firm that works with immigrant children, said, “These children, like so many others who contact our office each day, live in fear of being sent back to the violent countries they fled but have no idea how to defend themselves in a courtroom. The government’s rush to deport these children who stand alone and voiceless in court violates our laws and undermines our values as a nation.”
The preliminary injunction motion is available at: https://www.aclusocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/24-PI-motion.pdf
I can imagine two scenarios.
1) Jaime is a 22 year old with small stature and a baby face. He has also been a coyote since he was recruited by his older brother 4 years ago. He is entrepreneurial and has gone beyond human trafficking adding drug trafficking, kidnapping, and murder ofcompetitors to his accomplishments. But he sees his local opportunities as limited and has an opportunity to broaden his network of opportunity into the US. He sees the border crisis as a convenient way to get in to the US and stay permanently
having been deflected on a couple of previous attempts at entry. He is clearly dangerous and the citizens of the US have a
strong interest in keeping him out of the country.
2) Jesus is 16. His father is a legal resident of the US. His mom had to stay behind in Honduras to care for younger children.
Jesus unfortunately was being recruited by a local gang. His personal goal is to obtain an education, become a doctor and
come back to his community to serve the rural poor. The gang is not interested in his plans. Their plans include coercing him
not only by physical attack which has been unsuccessful in the past, but now by the treat of kidnapping and raping his
younger sister if he does not join and killing him if that does not work. The family knows this is no idle threat having seen it
happen in their community. Their solution is to smuggle him out of Honduras to join his father in the US.
Their goal is legal asylum.
So we have a dangerous liar and a young man genuinely fleeing for his life. My question is do we not have both a legal and moral responsibility to at least attempt in judicial proceeding to differentiate between the two before either admitting or deporting both ?
A disclaimer. I made up Jaime entirely as a representation of one fear that I have seen expressed about allowing entry of dangerous individuals.
Jesus is a composite figure of several individuals ( one doctor and one younger volunteer who was hoping to work in the area of social services) that I met or whose stories I heard while on a medical outreach to Honduras.
I would be happy to share what I learned about the Honduran effort to improve the medical conditions for their rural population, and what I learned about those who are attempting to supress those efforts if any one would be interested.
How about a third scenario where parents have no or minor reasons to send their child to the US other than their own country is not as nice as ours. The parents know all they need to do is get their child into the US and pretty soon the US will allow the parents to live in the US to take care of their child. Then they bring their other children and the whole family gets a pass.
No need to go to Central America for stories like this. Substitute the name of any number of cities in the USA and story would be the same.
A 10-year-old boy, his 13-year-old brother, and 15-year-old sister from SOUTH CENTRAL LOS ANGELES, whose father was murdered in front of their eyes. The father was targeted because he and the mother ran a rehabilitation center for people trying to leave gangs.
A 14-year-old girl who had been living with her grandparents, but was forced to flee CHICAGO after being threatened and then attacked by gang members.
A 15-year-old boy who was abandoned and abused in NEW YORK, and came to SAN FRANCISCO without any family or friends.
A 17-year-old boy who fled gang violence and recruitment in DETROIT and now lives with his lawful permanent-resident father in MINNEAPOLIS.
You could even substitute the name of any city in the US, large or small, and find similar stories.
The vast majority of countries in the world have violence problems that exceed this. Does this mean we should therefore open our doors to the tens if not hundreds of millions of unfortunate persons who think they would rather live in the land of milk and honey and should be accommodated and taken care of as long as they are able to sneak in the door.
The UN refugee agency reported in June 20, 2014, (World Refugee Day) that the number of refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people worldwide has, for the first time in the post-World War II era, exceeded 50 million people. The worldwide population of stateless people is not included in the figure of 51.2 million forcibly displaced people (since being stateless doesn’t necessarily correlate to being displaced). Statelessness remains hard to quantify with precision, but for 2013, UNHCR’s offices worldwide reported a figure of almost 3.5 million stateless people. This is about a third of the number of people estimated to be stateless globally. The officially recognized combined stateless and refugee population is over 60 million. This does not include those who are living in a high crime country and don’t like it. If we are going to open our doors to all of the world’s tragedies, when do these people come in?
What a payday for the Democrat backing lawyers. What a loss for the taxpayers.
WesC, the money would be much better spent taking care of our own problems, some of which you outlined. We can’t take of all the world’s problems, we can no longer afford it.
there are more republican defense attorneys than you may think ultimately i don’t think this issue is about paying off democratic attorneys so much as the principle that you don’t send a key back unless you can show he / she doesn’t have a legitimate claim for amnesty and the only way you can do that with attorneys. hire only republican attorneys if that makes you feel better.
“…the principle that you don’t send a key back unless you can show he / she doesn’t have a legitimate claim for amnesty and the only way you can do that with attorneys”
So you are saying that everyone has a legitimate claim for asylum until proven otherwise. If the concern was really about their safety while making the long trek to the US, we should make it know that all they have to do is go to the US Embassy or Consulate in their home country and request asylum. Then they wouldn’t need a taxpayer funded attorney to coach them on how to game the system.
how do we know whether they do or they don’t? kids’ not going to be able to articulate it – both language barrier and sophistication.
Language barrier? I can assure you with 100% certainty that the US Embassies and Consulates in all central american countries have many staff members who are fluent in Spanish.
So you want thousands of people swarming US embassies applying for asylum? Doesn’t seem very practical. If their lives are threatened, should they take up residence at the consulate until their cases can be heard? Do you think it’s possible that they are fairly desperate, if they’re willing to take trains and walk hundreds of very unsafe miles to try to enter the US?
I think part of the administration’s budget request is for public outreach in the countries of origin.
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/20/5916443/what-the-us-can-do-to-address-the-root-causes-of-the-migrant-crisis
WesC
“we should make it know that all they have to do is go to the US Embassy or Consulate in their home country and request asylum.”
I actually think that this is a great solution. My question is would you be willing to fund safe houses for them to inhabit while they are being considered for asylum , safe transport to the US if found qualified, for the dissemination of this information to the relevant population , and for trained adjudicators to process their applications be
they lawyers or others trained specifically in the laws applicable to asylum seekers as part of our diplomatic contingent to these countries ?
WesC
I completely agree with you that these kinds of stories are ubiquitous. The issue is that this is the slippery slope argument. Those millions have not arrived on our doorstep. These individuals have and in my opinion are entitled to due process. Not automatic admission, but the due process that we have established for asylum seekers.
“Those millions have not arrived on our doorstep.”
No, they already live here so shouldn’t we be taking care of them first instead of illegal immigrants?
Let’s not kid ourselves, this is all about the future vote.
let’s not kid ourselves, you have made it about the future vote through your own policies, in 1992, hispanics were evenly split in their partisan loyalties.
Actually, if I recall correctly, in 1986 Ronald Reagan passed Amnesty for 1 million illegal immigrants… which because 3.5 million… largely Latino.
And even with Amnesty, Latino’s still overwhelmingly voted Democrat.
This DNC talking point is getting way too old to even laugh at any more. Please stop.
There is nothing that the GOP can do convincing the flood of millions of poor and uneducated people that came here for the free stuff that the party against giving out free stuff is the one to vote for.
This isn’t your daddy’s Democrat Party and those aren’t your daddy’s immigrants. We are talking about a massive looter-moocher take down of the country. Let the new civil war begin… oops.. it already has.
Immigrants come here to work, not to go on welfare.
This data is specific to Central American immigrants.
The figures below are for both legal and illegal immigrants from the public-use files of the March 2013 Current Population Survey, collected by the Census Bureau:
Educational Attainment: 54 percent of Guatemalan immigrants (ages 25 to 65) have not graduated high school. The figure for Salvadorans is 53 percent, and for Hondurans, 44 percent. The corresponding figure for native-born Americans is 7 percent.
Welfare Use: 57 percent of households headed by immigrants from El Salvador use at least one major welfare program, as do 54 percent of Honduran households, and 49 percent of Guatemalan immigrant households. Among native households it is 24 percent.3
Poverty: 65 percent of Honduran immigrants and their young children (under 18) live in or near poverty (under 200 percent of the poverty threshold). For Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants and their children, it is 61 percent. The corresponding figure for natives and their children is 31 percent.4
Health Insurance: 47 percent of Guatemalan immigrants and their young children (under 18) do not have health insurance. The figure for both Salvadoran and Honduran immigrants and their young children is 41 percent. The corresponding figure for natives and their children is 13 percent.5
Share Working: 77 percent of immigrants from El Salvador (ages 25 to 54) have a job, as do 74 percent of Guatemalan immigrants and 73 percent of Honduran immigrants. The corresponding figure for natives is 76 percent.
Come to the US on a student visa to go to graduate school in engineering or business and and once you graduate you will be told you that if you want to stay you will have to leave and apply to immigrate from your home country which will takes years. Walk across the Rio Grande and be illiterate in your native language with no skills beyond manual labor, and claim you are fleeing high crime and you will be welcomed with open arms and given the full array of federal benefits.
“Welfare Use: 57 percent of households headed by immigrants from El Salvador use at least one major welfare program, as do 54 percent of Honduran households, and 49 percent of Guatemalan immigrant households. Among native households it is 24 percent.”
That’s the stats I’ve heard too, that over 50% of these illegal immigrants from Central America end up on some type of gov’t assistance. So they might come here to work but the actual numbers show that the taxpayer ends up funding at least half.