Human impact of the electronic monitors.  Many of the released workers have spoken eloquently about the great burden and shame the electronic monitors impose.  The workers say they are ashamed to be seen by family and friends, feel degraded by the device, and feel that they have been labeled as dangerous criminals (though no court or government official has made an individual assessment of their dangerousness).  Some individuals even report that fellow residents of their apartment buildings have asked them to move out of their homes because their every move was now being tracked by ICE.
 

     Besides requiring that released MSE workers wear electronic monitors, ICE imposed additional onerous requirements, such as placing them on a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. home curfew.  In addition, many of the monitoring devices being used required a daily three-hour electrical recharge, forcing their wearers to sit connected to a power outlet while the devices were recharging.  Because many of these rechargeable bracelets frequently malfunctioned, ICE ordered the private company, Group 4 Securicor Alternative (G4S), with which ICE contracts to perform the electronic monitoring to fit the MSE workers with a type of monitoring device that required them to have a “land” telephone line without common features such as voicemail, call-waiting, Internet access, etc., since such features could cause the monitors to malfunction.[5]  Because many of the workers did not have an established credit history, they had to pay the phone company a $300 deposit to have the required landline set up, an additional expense that the workers, who now had absolutely no income and were finding it difficult to pay for basic necessities, including rent, could ill afford. 
 

     However, the new monitoring systems also malfunctioned.  Some workers reported receiving multiple phone calls in the middle of the night from G4S monitoring staff calling to confirm that they were at home.  One G4S supervisor, claiming that the monitoring system showed that the worker was not at home when the worker was indeed home, reportedly accused one of the worker’s relatives of lying and threatened to report her to ICE if it happened again.  Obviously, requirements such as these prevent the monitored workers from engaging in very basic daily duties and activities that must be carried out before 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m.  One worker, for example, said he feared he would not be able to take his child to the emergency room if the child had a severe asthma attack during the curfew.  Of course, if a worker fails to comply with these extremely onerous rules, he or she faces the very real threat of being placed back into ICE detention and deported.  To make matters worse, most of the monitored workers must submit to random home visits by ICE officials or G4S employees.  The combined effect of these various requirements is to severely limit the device wearers’ ability to engage in normal, everyday duties and activities, and to make acquaintances, neighbors, and even friends extremely suspicious of them. 

     Getting monitors removed from workers with medical conditions.  Initially, it seemed unlikely that advocating for the removal of all the released workers’ bracelets would be successful, so we crafted a tiered strategy to first secure their removal for those with the most urgent needs — including pregnant women and others with medical conditions that the devices aggravated.  However, we continued to argue that the blanket use of the devices on all released workers was inappropriate.  Not only the pregnant women, but many other released workers reported that the devices were causing severe bruising or rashes, or were cutting into the skin around their legs. 

     Although ICE initially released on humanitarian grounds the handful of workers who were pregnant at the time of the MSE raid, ironically it later required them to wear electronic ankle monitors despite their being pregnant, apparently without considering the negative effects the devices were likely to have on the wearers’ health.  The pregnant women soon reported that the devices were causing them great pain and that their doctors were outraged that the women had been required to wear them.  We asked the women to obtain letters from their doctors detailing how the device was complicating their pregnancy, e.g., causing leg and back pain, swelling, and depression.  Once one of the women had secured such a letter, we immediately demanded that ICE remove the monitors from all the pregnant women, as it is common knowledge that pregnancy usually causes swelling, especially in the ankles.  In response, ICE quickly scheduled removal of the devices from all the pregnant women without requiring them to post any bond.  Despite having the devices removed, the women were required to continue reporting to the private company,  G4S.   The removal of the ankle bracelets from the pregnant women was our first success in rolling back ICE’s decision to place bracelets on all the released workers. 

     Based on that advocacy, we were able to obtain an agreement from the ICE official who ordered the removal of the devices from the pregnant women that ICE would consider removing the devices from other released workers on a case-by-case basis, if we could document other instances in which a worker’s medical condition was being degraded by the electronic monitor.  Based on this agreement, we were able to get ICE to remove monitors from workers who could document that they have chronic arthritis that is exacerbated by the device and also from HIV-positive workers for whom bruising or other medical complications caused by a device could be extremely dangerous. 

    Getting monitors removed from workers able to document that they are not a flight risk.  We also asked ICE to remove the monitors from all MSE workers who were initially released without any kind of electronic monitoring, but were ordered to appear for subsequent appointments with ICE.  In some of these cases, individuals were free for nearly a week before their appointment, and in some instances ICE had not even obtained their fingerprints prior to releasing them.  Nevertheless, these individuals showed up for their ICE appointments, at which time the monitoring devices were placed on them.  We were initially able to get ICE to agree to have the ankle devices removed from these workers if they posted a $1,500 bond.  Most of the workers have decided they prefer to post a bond rather than deal with the inhumanity and shame of having to wear an ankle monitor.  Alongside these advocacy efforts, attorneys from the network agreed to file bond redetermination motions with immigration judges to request removal of the electronic monitors from some of the released workers.  After extensive collaboration among those attorneys, one local immigration judge issued a favorable ruling finding that the ankle monitors and other restrictions amounted to constructive custody.  The IJ allowed these workers to post a $1,500 bond in order to have the devices removed.  Shortly thereafter, ICE also agreed to remove the monitoring devices from any former MSE worker who could post a $1,500 bond. 

     This was a big victory for the rapid response team and, most importantly, the affected workers.  This success helped gain momentum for ongoing legal and organizing efforts.  In addition, we were able to use money donated to a bond fund to help defray the cost of the posting of the bond for workers seeking to have their electronic monitoring devices removed.  Without this critical donation, many MSE workers would have been unable to post bond on their own.

Resources (electronic monitoring–related): 

• For more information on the advocacy and legal efforts used by the Los Angeles raids rapid response network with regard to electronic monitoring devices, contact Karen Tumlin at NILC.

Lessons learned (electronic monitoring–related):

• Quickly identify all workers released wearing electronic monitoring devices who have medical conditions that the devices might exacerbate.  Such conditions might include pregnancy, diabetes, HIV, chronic rheumatoid arthritis, etc.
   

• Document cases of workers who appear for ICE appointments or court appearances before a monitoring device has been placed on them, so as to be able to argue that they have already proven they are not a flight risk and should not be subject to electronic monitoring.
   

• If you are challenging the use of the monitoring devices in immigration court, coordinate, as quickly as possible, a legal strategy to request bond redetermination and removal of the electronic monitors.  If possible, set up test cases.
   

• Create a bond fund to provide grants or interest-free loans to defer the cost of posting bond in lieu of detention or release on electronic monitoring.  This fund will be necessary if your advocacy efforts to have electronic bracelets removed from released detainees are successful.
   

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