New York Times
By Liz Robbins
February 20, 2018
The Trump administration has made it clear it will aggressively move to deport young immigrants from Central America who it determines have ties to the violent MS-13 street gang. But in a lawsuit filed last week against federal agencies, the New York Civil Liberties Union said that federal officials are holding young adults — even those without suspected gang ties — indefinitely and illegally.
The civil rights organization filed a class-action suit in Federal District Court in Manhattan on behalf of a 17-year-old native of El Salvador, who has been in federal custody since July, after he was arrested by agents for United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement at his home on Long Island. He did not get a hearing before an immigration judge until December, when Judge Amiena A. Khan of New York declared he was not a safety or flight risk.
But he has still not been released, and his lawyers say that the government is holding him because of its political agenda to deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible.
“The consequence for those who are being accused is huge, irreparable harm,” said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “MS-13 is a problem, gangs are a problem.”
But she called the prolonged detention of young immigrants, “a witch hunt.”
Another lawsuit filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union led to the release of 27 of 29 Long Island teenagers arrested on suspicion of gang involvement who a judge ruled were not given prompt hearings.
In the lawsuit filed Friday, the lawyers say there are at least 40 plaintiffs across New York State who have been detained indefinitely and who could be part of a class action. Most of those are not accused gang members, the suit said.
The United States Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the resettlement of unaccompanied minors who have entered the country illegally, said it could not comment on pending litigation.
The suit claims that the government is violating the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which requires that unaccompanied minors be released from detention promptly and placed in the least restrictive setting appropriate.
A policy enacted in June, however, requires the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement to approve every juvenile’s release. The N.Y.C.L.U. lawyers said the director, Scott Lloyd, is delaying the process without explanation.
This policy, the suit claimed, violates the children’s fundamental right to be reunited with their families while fighting their immigration cases.
“From everything we can tell,” Christopher Dunn, a lawyer for the N.Y.C.L.U. said, “they have a view that anyone who had a gang taint at one point is always a gang member and they are just not going to release those kids.”
Starting in September 2016, Suffolk County on Long Island saw 17 MS-13-related murders in 15 months. That prompted a swift, coordinated local and federal response from law enforcement agencies. In August, the resettlement agency created its Community Safety Initiative, which says that no gang member can be released to a sponsor without a judge’s order.
The last killings that authorities have linked to MS-13 came on April 11, when four young Latino men were found hacked to death with machetes in the woods behind a Central Islip soccer field. Two of the victims had been students at Bellport High School, where teachers had noted an uptick in the presence of MS-13.
That was where the plaintiff in the lawsuit was a freshman last year. Identified as L.V.M. because he is a minor, he was suspended from Bellport High School less than two weeks after the killings after being accused of flashing gang signs in the hallway with another student, according to the complaint.
Three months later, L.V.M. was arrested by immigration agents conducting a sweep they called “Operation Matador,” which has arrested 205 young adults for MS-13 connections on Long Island.
“He is not a gang member, he doesn’t support MS-13, he fled gang violence in his home country,” his lawyer, Paige Austin, said. L.V.M. said he was raising both middle fingers to respond to another student, the lawsuit said.
After his arrest, agents brought L.V.M. to Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center in Virginia, a secure facility. Nearly six weeks later, he was transferred to a lower level of supervision at Children’s Village in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.
At L.V.M.’s Dec. 18 hearing, the government presented additional evidence outlining his gang involvement. According to his lawyers, the government said a video existed of him flashing gang signs (which they have been unable to see), he wore clothing that distinguished him as a gang member, he had been identified by the Suffolk County Police Department as belonging to the gang, and he had gang tattoos.
His mother, Esmeralda Mejia de Galindo, said she was surprised to hear all of these allegations — especially that last detail. “My son doesn’t have a tattoo,” she said in an interview through an interpreter on Monday. “I’m the mom, I would know.”
Ms. Meija, 36, fled El Salvador with L.V.M. and his younger brother in May 2016 because they were targeted by gang members, according to the lawsuit. They were arrested at the border and later applied for asylum; their applications are pending. After his arrest by I.C.E., L.V.M.’s status was changed by immigration authorities to that of an unaccompanied minor.
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security published a news release declaring that unaccompanied minors and families are exploiting “legal loopholes” that only “invite more illegal immigration,” and that the abuses must end now.
Mr. Dunn said L.V.M. and other juveniles have rights. “They are not loopholes, they are federal guarantees to protect children like him,” Mr. Dunn said.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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