|
 The accusation centers on the Jan. 2-4 raids that were the U.S.
administration’s first large-scale operation since mid-2014 to
deport hundreds of families who crossed the southern border
illegally.
Four of the women -- three of them in statements to Reuters through
their lawyers and one in an interview with Reuters -- said that ICE
agents had misled them on their right to legal counsel while they
were detained at a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.
ICE, which oversees deportation operations, denied that its officers
told the women they had no legal recourse in their case.
"Upon arrival at the center in Dilley, Texas, ICE officers provide
incoming residents with a notice of right to legal counsel," said
ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok. "The residents in question all had an
opportunity to meet with legal counsel."
Under U.S. law, immigrants are guaranteed access to a lawyer, even
after they have been given a deportation order. In practice, many
cannot afford a lawyer or are caught in a backlog of cases seeking a
pro bono lawyer.
Although President Barack Obama has taken steps to ease the
deportation threat for undocumented immigrants with substantial ties
to the United States, he has faced criticism from immigration rights
advocates and Latino leaders over the January raids.
U.S. officials say the raids were intended to send a message of
deterrence to Central American families to prevent a reprise of a
2014 border crisis in which tens of thousands of migrants from the
region streamed across the Mexican border.
Some women detained in the January raids may have had a strong legal
case for asylum because they were fleeing violence in Central
America, said Ian Philabaum, an advocacy coordinator for the CARA
Family Detention Pro Bono Project, a group of lawyers made up of
four immigrant advocacy groups.
The lawyers representing the women are all from CARA. The women were
among 35 people who received an emergency hold on their deportations
from the Justice Department and who are now seeking asylum. Dozens
of women and children detained in the raids were deported from Jan.
4-7.
(Graphic on spike in asylum claims from Guatemala, Honduras and El
Salvador:http://tmsnrt.rs/1KDwn)
The four women said they never received the legal rights
presentation that ICE said it provides.
Two of them, Ana Orellana and Gloria Diaz, said in statements
through their lawyers that they were called into a room with an
unspecified number of other El Salvadorian women shortly after
arriving at Texas facility. There, they said, they were told they
had no access to lawyers and no more legal recourse to avoid
deportation.
One woman, Dominga Rivas, said ICE officers invited her to the legal
rights presentation only after her lawyers brought her case to an
immigration judge who issued a stay of deportation. She said she did
not attend because she was afraid it was a trick.
Cecillia Wang, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's
Immigrants' Rights Project, told Reuters the civil rights legal
advocacy group is considering bringing a lawsuit against the
government over the families' legal treatment.
[to top of second column] |
Several Democratic senators introduced a bill on Thursday to
guarantee a lawyer at the government's expense to unaccompanied
child migrants and those who have been victims of torture and
violence. The bill's sponsors said that without a lawyer, an asylum
seeker's chance of success is "virtually nil."
ASYLUM TREND LAGGING
One woman, Susana Arevalo, told Reuters that immigration officers
told her she had no legal recourse for her case when they came to
her house on Jan. 2 in Atlanta, arrested her and took her to the
Dilley detention center. Arevalo also said she did not receive a
legal rights presentation in Dilley.
Asked about Arevalo's case, ICE referred Reuters to its statement
that all the residents in question were informed of their legal
rights.
She avoided deportation when she was taken off a plane days later by
U.S. authorities along with her two children moments before it left
for El Salvador.
Arevalo’s mother had contacted a lawyer who convinced an immigration
judge to put an emergency hold on her deportation, she said. Arevalo
suffers from a form of epilepsy that is induced by stress, said
Allen Keller, a doctor who examined her at Dilley.
Keller told Reuters someone with her level of epilepsy should not
have been targeted for deportation. An ICE spokesman said they can't
provide information on medical issues and declined to comment.
"It was arguably not safe to be putting her on a flight, let alone a
flight to a violent environment that could trigger her seizures,"
Keller said.
While the number of asylum seekers from El Salvador, Guatemala and
Honduras has surged by 212 percent between 2010 and 2014, the number
of people granted asylum has lagged, rising only by 64 percent,
according to Justice Department data.
The Obama administration announced last month that it would open
centers in the region where Central Americans can apply for refugee
status rather than making the dangerous trip to the United States
where they may not be granted asylum.
Increasingly, lawyers say, asylum seekers from Central America and
the Middle East face a breakdown in due process as backlogs increase
while judges and lawyers are in short supply.
“The underlying system does not give asylum seekers a real chance to
tell their stories," said Kevin Appleby, director of international
migration policy at the Center for Migration Studies.
(Additional reporting by Alistair Bell in Washington and Fiona Ortiz
in Chicago. Editing by Jason Szep and Stuart Grudgings)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
