Blog of Rights
Michael
Tan

Michael Tan is a Staff Attorney at the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project (IRP).  He is a graduate of Harvard College and the Yale Law School, where he won the Stephen J. Massey prize for best exemplifying the values of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization.  After law school, Michael clerked for the Honorable M. Margaret McKeown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and worked at IRP as Skadden Fellow and a Liman Public Interest Fellow.  His practice includes litigation and advocacy relating to immigration detention and immigrants' access to education.  Outside the ACLU, Michael co-chairs the ABA Committee on the Rights of Immigrants, and serves as a Steering Committee member of the Detention Watch Network and a board member of the Refugee Reunification Project.  Michael also holds a Masters' Degree in Comparative Literature from New York University.

09/14/2012
Immigration Detention

Immigration Detainees Have the Right to Due Process, Too

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 2:12pm

Alejandro Rodriguez’s parents brought him from Mexico when he was a baby. Prior to his detention, Alejandro earned his green card and lived near his extended family in Los Angeles, working as a dental assistant to support his two U.S. citizen children. The two convictions that gave rise to his detention and deportation case were minor and non-violent— joyriding when he was 19, and a misdemeanor drug possession when he was 24. Alejandro posed no flight risk or danger to the community and yet, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) locked Alejandro up for more than three years without a bond hearing. Bond hearings are a basic and guaranteed principle of due process in the American judicial system, but thousands of immigrants like Alejandro are denied this fundamental right on a daily basis.

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06/13/2012
Plyler v. Doe

Plyler’s Legacy Goes to College

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 2:23pm

Adriana Sanchez, whose story was recently reported by the Associated Press, was brought from Mexico to Central California at age twelve by her parents, who are both farm workers. The family overstayed their visas. As the AP explained:

Even though Sanchez excelled in high school, she was in the country illegally, lacked a Social Security number and work permit, and didn’t qualify for financial aid. But she volunteered hundreds of hours and paid her way through college and graduate school with a dozen internships. Now 24, Sanchez graduated last week from California State University, Fresno with a master’s degree in International Relations, a full-time job [as an independent contractor] and no loans to repay.

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10/19/2011
End ICE Abuse

The Tragic Costs of Immigration Detention

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 11:12am

This week, the ACLU Blog of Rights launched a 10-day blog series about the costs of immigration detention, both human and fiscal, and what needs to be done to ensure fair and humane policy.

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09/01/2011
Prolonged Detention

No Bond, No Bars

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 4:53pm

Cheikh Diop was detained for 1,072 days — or nearly three years — while challenging the government's attempt to remove him to Senegal, a country he had fled 20 years earlier after being tortured by Senegalese military forces. Because of his prolonged detention, Mr. Diop lost his longtime job as a cook at TGI Friday's and was separated from his four U.S. citizen children — all because the government refused to grant him the basic due process of a bond hearing.

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06/16/2011

Deportation to Haiti Is Still a Death Sentence

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 1:15pm

Earlier this week, our government deported yet another 26 individuals to Haiti — even though for many, deportation to Haiti remains a likely death sentence. Wildrick T. Guerrier, a man on the first deportation flight in January, died of cholera just nine days after his arrival in Haiti. Mr. Guerrier, a 34-year-old lawful permanent U.S. resident, had lived in the United States for 17 years and left behind his fiancée and her young son, whom he was raising as his own.

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05/24/2011

New Bill Proposes to Lock Up Immigrants Forever

By Ahilan Arulanantham, ACLU of Southern California & Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 10:47am

Reverend Raymond Soeoth is a Christian minister who fled Indonesia with his wife after suffering persecution for their faith. When his asylum application was denied in 2004, the U.S. government put Reverend Soeoth in immigration detention. Even though he posed no danger or flight risk and had never been convicted of any crime, he spent over 2 ½ years in detention while the courts decided whether to reconsider his asylum claim. During that time, he never received a bond hearing to determine whether his detention was justified.

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05/11/2011

School Is For Everyone

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 1:12pm

Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education issued an important guidance reminding educators that schoolhouse doors must be opened to all children residing in their districts. The guidance instructs school districts to avoid all enrollment practices that may chill, discourage, or exclude students from school based on their immigration status or the immigration status of their families.

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03/09/2011

No Bond, No Bars: Federal Court Rejects the Prolonged Detention of Immigrants Without a Hearing

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 12:25pm

On Monday, a federal appeals court ruled that the government cannot lock up immigration detainees for prolonged periods of time without providing them a basic form of due process — a bond hearing where the government must show that their detention is justified.

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11/17/2010

Preserving a Lifeline to College and Daring to DREAM

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 4:41pm

The California Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday (PDF) that students who attend at least three years of high school in California and graduate are eligible for in-state tuition rates at California public colleges and universities, regardless of their immigration status. The court found that federal law did not bar California from offering tuition equality to students. California is one of 10 states with similar laws on the books.

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08/20/2009

Class Action Challenging Prolonged Immigration Detention Goes Forward

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 6:15pm

Today a federal appellate court in California today ruled that a lawsuit on behalf immigrants who have been detained for more than six months without bond hearings can go forward as a class action. The decision is a huge victory for hundreds of immigrants who have been held in prolonged detention without the most basic element of due process: a hearing to determine if their detention is even justified.

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