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.

09/01/2011
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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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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04/01/2013
Immigration and Customs Enforcement

VICTORY! Ohio Lets DREAMers Drive

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 5:18pm

Last week, Ohio officials confirmed that young immigrants who came to the United States as children—or “DREAMers”—will be eligible for driver’s licenses.  The decision impacts an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 young people who stand to benefit from the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Ohio joins the overwhelming chorus of states that have gotten with the DACA program. Generally, states limit driver’s licenses to immigrants who can show they are “authorized" or “legally present” in the United States. Consistent with guidance from the federal government, the overwhelming majority of states like Ohio have rightly acknowledged that immigrants granted DACA are legally authorized to be in the country, and thus eligible to drive.

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01/25/2013
Anti-Immigrant Laws

Victory! Iowa Lets the DREAMers Drive!

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 12:46pm

This week the Iowa Department of Transportation announced that young immigrants who came to the country as children—or “DREAMers”—will be eligible for driver’s licenses—reversing the state’s decision a month ago to ban them from the roads. The decision affects an estimated 5,000 DREAMers benefiting from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program, which permits certain young immigrants to remain in the country and apply for work permits on a two-year, renewable basis.

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11/15/2012
Immigration Detention

ACLU Files Class Action Lawsuit Challenging Mandatory Immigration Lock-up

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 9:29am

Garfield Gayle, a 59-year-old green card holder from Jamaica, has lived in the United States for 30 years.

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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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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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07/13/2009

Longtime Legal Resident Finally Gets His Day in Court

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 5:23pm

Last Friday, the federal district court in Buffalo, New York affirmed a basic constitutional principle: no one should be locked up for prolonged periods of time without a hearing as to whether they should be detained in the first place.

Longtime lawful permanent resident Errol Barrington Scarlett has spent more than five and a half years in immigration detention while fighting his deportation case. Now within 60 days, he will for the first time go before a judge to determine whether his detention is justified

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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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