New York Times
By Julia Preston
August 22, 2014
In
a challenge to the Obama administration’s strategy for deterring
illegal border crossings by Central American migrants, civil rights
groups filed a federal lawsuit
on Friday claiming that the government committed egregious due process
violations against women and children held for deportation at a
detention center in New Mexico.
The
lawsuit, brought in Federal District Court in Washington, says that
immigration authorities created a system to rush deportations from the
temporary center holding
about 600 mothers and their children in the isolated desert town of
Artesia, N.M. The suit accuses officials of raising numerous legal and
practical hurdles to discourage migrants from seeking asylum, after
deciding in advance that few petitions would succeed.
“By
locking up women and babies, the Obama administration has made it their
mission to deport these people as quickly as possible,” said Marielena
Hincapie, executive
director of the National Immigration Law Center, one of the groups
bringing the suit. “Our message to the government is simple: Follow the
law,” she said during a conference call with reporters. “We must ensure
that every person who interacts with our legal
system has a fair hearing.”
Other
groups bringing the lawsuit, on behalf of 10 women and children who are
or were recently detained in Artesia, are the American Civil Liberties
Union, the American
Immigration Council and the National Lawyers Guild.
The
lawsuit escalates the confrontation between the administration and
immigrant legal organizations over the effort by the Homeland Security
secretary, Jeh Johnson, to
stem an influx across the South Texas border by detaining more illegal
crossers, particularly families with children, and sending them home
speedily, to discourage others from attempting the trip.
Mr. Johnson has said he wants to send a clear message to Central Americans coming illegally: “You will be sent home.”
In
the Artesia center, on a federal law enforcement training campus 200
miles from El Paso, officials set up a courtroom where immigration
judges hear asylum cases by
video-teleconference and asylum officers interview migrants to make
initial assessments of their claims.
But
according to the lawsuit, the center does not provide conditions for
legal advocates to represent the migrants or inform them of their
rights. Telephone communications
are severely limited, and migrants are not allowed to receive mail to
gather documents to bolster their cases. Lawyers routinely had trouble
meeting with migrants and were denied access to hearings and interviews.
Mothers
were required to be interviewed with their children, and they reported
being reluctant to discuss threats, sexual abuse and violence they
faced.
“Of
course these women want to shield their children from these stories,”
said Melissa Crow, legal director of the American Immigration Council.
Homeland
Security officials said they could not discuss the lawsuit directly.
But they said that free volunteer lawyers were always available to
migrants in Artesia through
a sign-up system established in the center. Marsha Catron, a
spokeswoman for the department, said the administration’s response to
the border surge had been “both humane and lawful.”
Officials are imposing a stricter standard in their evaluations of the migrants’ fears of persecution, the suit says.
Homeland
Security Department figures show that migrants in Artesia have been
denied asylum at a much higher rate than others. As of October, asylum
officers were finding
migrants’ fears credible in 80 percent of cases, allowing them to go on
to battle for asylum through the courts. In Artesia, officers have
found migrants credible in 38 percent of cases.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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