Immigration Detention

05/16/2013

Scholars to Senate: Prolonged and Indefinite Immigration Detention is Unconstitutional and un-American

By Diana Scholl, Communications Strategist, ACLU at 2:08pm

While most countries accept the return of their citizens if the United States orders them deported, several refuse to take back them back, either because of a lack of formal relations with the U.S. (Cuba, for example), or simply because of slow background check processes.

04/25/2013

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Yes, the U.S. Wrongfully Deports Its Own Citizens

By Esha Bhandari, Equal Justice Works Fellow, ACLU at 11:48am

This week's New Yorker features the harrowing ordeal of Mark Lyttle, a U.S. citizen with mental disabilities who was deported to Mexico. Lyttle was born in North Carolina and has psychiatric and cognitive disabilities. He was inexplicably referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2008 after being misidentified as an undocumented immigrant from Mexico even though he had never been to Mexico, shared no Mexican heritage, and did not speak any Spanish. As the New Yorker article notes, "Lyttle is brown-skinned," and "the vagaries of race and ethnicity obviously played a part" in causing him to be singled out for immigration enforcement.

04/24/2013

Immigration Detention

Historic Decision Recognizing Right to Counsel for Group of Immigration Detainees

By Esha Bhandari, Equal Justice Works Fellow, ACLU & Carmen Iguina, Equal Justice Works Fellow, ACLU of Southern California at 11:22am

In a landmark ruling yesterday, Federal District Judge Dolly M. Gee ordered the federal government to provide legal representation for immigrant detainees in California, Arizona and Washington who have serious mental disabilities and are unable to represent themselves in immigration court. This is a historic decision — it is the first ever to recognize a right to appointed counsel in immigration proceedings for a group of immigrants. Unlike the criminal justice system, where judges are generally required to appoint counsel for defendants who cannot afford a lawyer, there are no safeguards in the immigration enforcement system to ensure the basic fairness of having legal representation for immigrants. As a result, over half of all individuals in immigration court — including 84% of detained individuals — must face the complex legal proceedings alone and unrepresented, while the government is always represented by a lawyer.

04/16/2013

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

On Eve of Immigration Reform Rollout, Immigration Detainees Win Right to Fair Hearing

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 4:51pm

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a landmark ruling that curtails one of the most wasteful and draconian features of our immigration lock-up system: the government's practice of putting immigration detainees behind bars for months or even years, without ever holding a bond hearing to determine if they should be locked up in the first place. In Rodriguez v. Robbins, a class-action lawsuit brought by the ACLU, the Court upheld an order requiring bond hearings for detainees locked up six months or longer while they fight their deportation cases. The ruling stands to benefit thousands of immigration detainees across the Ninth Circuit, where an estimated 25% of immigrant detainees are held every year.

04/05/2013

Universal Human Rights

International Human Rights Body Seeking Answers on U.S. Civil and Political Rights Record

By Allison Frankel, ACLU Human Rights Program at 4:16pm

An international human rights body is set to question the United States on its obligations under a key human rights treaty. The U.N. Human Rights Committee, an independent body of experts tasked with monitoring compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), this week released its list of issues, which will serve as the basis for its upcoming review of U.S. compliance with the treaty. The U.S. ratified the ICCPR in 1992 and is obligated to submit to periodic reviews of its treaty implementation efforts.

10/05/2012

Immigration Deportation

U.S. Citizen Wrongfully Deported to Mexico, Settles His Case Against the Federal Government

By Esha Bhandari, Equal Justice Works Fellow, ACLU at 12:15pm

Mark Lyttle, an American citizen with mental disabilities who was wrongfully detained and deported to Mexico and forced to live on the streets and in prisons for months, settled his case against the federal government this week.

Lyttle will receive $175,000 for the suffering he endured after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who deported him despite ample evidence that he was a U.S. citizen. The settlement comes after a federal district court in Georgia ruled in Lyttle’s favor in March, holding that the bulk of his claims against the federal defendants should not be dismissed.

05/17/2012

Prison Rape Elimination Act

The Shameful Index of Prison Rape - Action on PREA Can End the Violence

By Amy Fettig, ACLU National Prison Project & Jennifer Wedekind, National Prison Project at 4:29pm

Today the Department of Justice released the long-awaited Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) regulations, representing the first time that the federal government has issued national standards to help end sexual abuse in correctional facilities. The regulations are two years late and a lot of harm has been done in their absence, but now that they’ve finally been released they can help us protect important constitutional and human rights and ensure safe and fair correctional facilities that assist prisoners in rehabilitation rather than needlessly brutalizing them. The ACLU supports the Department’s efforts to protect and prevent sexual abuse in places of detention, although we regret that immigration facilities are not yet included in these standards.

04/16/2013

Anti-Immigrant Laws

Beyond the Southwest Border - The CBC Expands the Immigration Debate

By Kimberly Humphrey, Washington Legislative Office at 1:40pm

Most reports on immigration focus on Latino workers and the southwest border. However, there are many faces and backgrounds of American immigrants, and the breadth of obstacles created as a result of our broken system are far-reaching. This week the Congressional Black Caucus ("CBC") and Howard University hosted a compelling discussion on immigration that highlighted the reasons why immigration is important to all communities, and is particularly relevant to Black Americans and all communities of the African diaspora.

01/23/2013

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

ICE's New Policy Doesn't Fix the Constitutional Problems with Detainers

By Kate Desormeau, ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project at 2:07pm

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claims that its recently announced new policy on immigration detainers is a major step toward “smarter immigration enforcement,” and it seems to have convinced some editorial boards that that’s true. But serious problems remain.

03/20/2013

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

How to Create an Immigration System That's Worthy of American Values

By Ahilan Arulanantham, ACLU of Southern California at 11:37am

This was cross-posted to The Huffington Post.

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing entitled "Building an Immigration System Worthy of American Values," where I will testify. The hearing will address how our immigration system currently fails to live up to our Constitution because it does not ensure the due process right to a fair day in court before locking someone away for months in an immigration prison or permanently banishing them from our country. Furthermore, although immigration law is formally termed as "civil," this is legal fiction; in reality, it has the hallmark harshness of the criminal justice system. The outcomes of this system are often devastating, not only for the immigrants themselves, but also for their families.

American Civil Liberties Union