Category Archives: News Releases

Obamacare September 5 Deadline

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 5, 2014

CONTACT
Adela de la Torre, 213-400-7822, [email protected]

Hundreds of Thousands Risk Losing Health Coverage

Advocates say immigrants were not properly informed of need for additional verification

WASHINGTON — More than 200,000 families must submit additional information to the government by the end of the day today to verify their immigration or citizenship status. Failure to do so could cut off the coverage they purchased on federal health insurance exchanges.

This new deadline is the latest in a series of governmental gaffes over the online application system, identity verification, language access, and enrollment hurdles, and advocates are calling upon the government to keep families from losing coverage while people update their information. Below is a statement from Jenny Rejeske, health policy analyst for the National Immigration Law Center:

“Immigrant families overcame many logistical and technological challenges to enroll themselves and their families in affordable health coverage through the federal exchanges. Their actions are good for everyone: when more people have access to health coverage, everybody’s health improves.

“But some logistical and technological problems have not yet been fixed, and the federal government has failed to provide adequate notice to people who speak languages other than English or Spanish. Too many people have complied with the requests to submit more information but still are told there are problems. And too many are still unaware of what they need to do to avoid losing their health insurance because of the government’s failure to communicate with them in a language they can understand.

“That’s why it’s so befuddling that the government has threatened to stop coverage for so many people when it hasn’t fully fixed its own systems. These actions are irresponsible and harmful, and detract from the central promise of Obamacare.

“Immigrant families who received a notice to submit additional information should know that it’s not too late to send in their information. We urge the administration to work with families and advocates to collect the information they need without cutting people out of coverage. However, the government shouldn’t impose such draconian measures upon people who overcame challenge after challenge to enroll, and whom the government’s system is still failing.”

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Immigration Law Professors’ Letter to Obama

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 3, 2014

CONTACT
Adela de la Torre, NILC, 213-400-7822, [email protected]
Wendy Feliz, American Immigration Council, 202-507-7524, [email protected]

136 Leading Experts on Immigration Law Agree: President Has Legal Authority to Expand Relief to Immigrants

WASHINGTON — U.S. law professors sent a letter today to the White House stating that President Obama has wide legal authority to make needed changes to immigration enforcement policy. The president is considering how to use his authority to mitigate the damage caused by our dysfunctional immigration system and protect certain individuals from deportation.

The letter was written by Stephen H. Legomsky, John S. Lehmann University Professor at Washington University School of Law and former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Chief Counsel; Hiroshi Motomura, Susan Westerberg Prager Professor at UCLA School of Law; and Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar at Penn State Law. It was signed by professors from 32 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

“As part of the administration’s legal team that ironed out the details of DACA, I can personally attest that we took pains to make sure the program meticulously satisfied every conceivable legal requirement,” said Legomsky. “In this letter, 136 law professors who specialize in immigration reach the same conclusion and explain why similar programs would be equally lawful.” (DACA is the acronym for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program the president initiated in June 2012.)

In their letter, the law professors point out that “The administration has the legal authority to use prosecutorial discretion as a tool for managing resources and protecting individuals residing in and contributing to the United States in meaningful ways.” The letter goes on to explain that presidents from both parties have used prosecutorial discretion to prevent specific, and often large, groups of immigrants from being deported.

“Our letter confirms that the administration has specific legal authority to use prosecutorial discretion as a tool for protecting an individual or group from deportation,” said Wadhia. “This legal authority served as foundation for prosecutorial discretion policy across several administrations. Historically, this policy has been premised on the twin policy goals of managing limited resources and shielding people with compelling situations from removal.”

This is the second major letter about prosecutorial discretion that law professors have sent to President Obama. The first letter, sent in 2012, outlined the legal argument for expanded administrative relief, which later became the blueprint for the president’s DACA program. That program allows qualifying noncitizens who came to the United States as children to apply for relief from deportation and work authorization.

“This letter reflects a clear, broad, and informed consensus on two key points,” said Motomura. “First, the president has the legal authority, exercising his discretion as the nation’s top immigration prosecutor, to establish enforcement priorities.  Second, the president’s lawful discretion includes the authority to set up an orderly system, modeled on DACA, for granting temporary relief from deportation.”

The National Immigration Law Center and the American Immigration Council helped to distribute the letter that was sent today. Recently, the Council also released a report by Professor Motomura, “The President’s Discretion, Immigration Enforcement, and the Rule of Law,” which provides further legal and historical background on this issue.

A copy of the letter is available atpennstatelaw.psu.edu/lawprofessorletter and atwww.nilc.org/document.html?id=1133.

To learn more about how President Obama can restore order to our dysfunctional immigration system, visit NILC’s Administrative Relief & Prosecutorial Discretion webpage.

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September 5 Deadline for Obamacare

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 27, 2014

CONTACT
Gebe Martinez, [email protected], 703-731-9505, or
Kelsey Crow, [email protected], 832-326-0990

HASHTAGS: #BySept5, #5DeSept

Sept. 5 Deadline Nears for Latino and AAPI Immigrant Communities Needing to Verify Obamacare Eligibility

Links to informational materials are available below.

WASHINGTON — Latino and AAPI immigrants who bought health insurance through Obamacare must comply with the government’s request for more information about their citizenship or immigration status by September 5, and not get frustrated if they are having trouble submitting the information, health care and immigrants’ advocates said Wednesday.

Only a few days remain before the September 5 deadline for individuals who have been asked for additional documents to respond to notices. Failure to submit the requested information on time could mean a loss of health coverage through the Marketplace after September 30, advocates warned during a telephonic press briefing.

“Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC). “The request for more information does not mean that these individuals are not eligible. There are many reasons for why this happened, including technical glitches and language barriers that were beyond the control of the applicants.”

More than 300,000 individuals in 36 states have received notices from the federal Marketplace. Consumers in Florida and Texas received the most notifications. Other states include: AL, AK, AZ, AR, DE, GA, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MI, MS, MO, MT, NE, NH, NJ, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TN, UT, VA, WV, WI and WY. States that run their own marketplaces may also be following the federal deadlines, or may have slightly different final deadlines and procedures. Of the 300,000, about 57,000 notices were sent to Spanish-speakers.

In many cases, families are just now realizing they have to respond, often because they received the initial three-page notice in English, did not understand the importance of the notices, or believe they are in compliance because they submitted the documents with the help of assisters when they originally enrolled in the health care program.

Elizabeth Colvin, director of Insure Central Texas (www.insurecentraltexas.org), a program of Foundation Communities, cited the case of a 57-year-old man in Texas who was born in the U.S. and has never had a passport. His driver’s license may be used in combination with another document, such as a birth certificate, which he lost years ago in a flood, and now he has to wait several days to receive a new certificate from the state. In another case, Colvin’s center helped a Spanish-speaker upload documents and qualify during the initial enrollment period, only to recently realize — after seeing the letter in Spanish — that the documents are being requested again.

“Even if customers are frustrated, it’s important for them to pay attention and respond so that they don’t lose their coverage,” Colvin said, adding that it is difficult to know when documents are successfully uploaded on the online system. “We haven’t been able to get confirmations for people, and that’s unsettling. We would like to find a way to reassure them.”

“Since the notices are in English, people do not know what they say or that they are important. They put them aside or throw them away,” added Amy Jones, Health and Social Services Director, Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Associations Coalition, Inc. (SEAMAAC) in Philadelphia, PA.

“At SEAMAAC, we are calling everyone we helped enroll to let them know to look for these letters in the mail, and to bring their documents in if they need help submitting or resubmitting,” Jones said. “We created a letter and translated it into Chinese, Vietnamese, and Nepali to send to families about these notices that we have not been able to reach by phone. We also created a flyer to get word out to the general community to understand the urgency of looking in their mail for these notices. This flyer was translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Nepali, Indonesian, Karen-Burmese and Chin-Burmese.”

Advocates said they continue to press the Obama administration and, specifically, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to eliminate the language barriers and system glitches that create difficulties for clients attempting to comply with the rules.

“It became clear during the first open enrollment period that navigators and assisters were essential in helping Action for Health Justice provide access to health care information and enrollment assistance for more than 540,000 Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders,” said Priscilla Huang, senior director of impact, Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF), a member organization of Action for Health Justice. “Along with many other groups, we continue to work with DHHS to address enrollment challenges, specifically increasing sufficient in-language notices regarding personal data and health care coverage.”

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U.S. Sued Over Unjust Deportation Process

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 22, 2014

CONTACT
Adela de la Torre, National Immigration Law Center, 213-400-7822, [email protected]
Inga Sarda-Sorensen, American Civil Liberties Union, 212-549-2666, [email protected]
Wendy Feliz, American Immigration Council, 202-507-7524, [email protected]
Paromita Shah, National Immigration Project/NLG, 202-271-2286, [email protected]

Groups Sue U.S. Government Over Life-Threatening Deportation Process Used Against Mothers and Children Escaping Extreme Violence in Central America

WASHINGTON — The National Immigration Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union, American Immigration Council, and National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild today sued the federal government to challenge its policies denying a fair deportation process to mothers and children who have fled extreme violence, death threats, rape, and persecution in Central America and come to the United States seeking safety.

The groups filed the case on behalf of mothers and children locked up at an isolated detention center in Artesia, New Mexico, which is hours from the nearest major metropolitan area. The complaint charges the Obama administration with enacting a new strong-arm policy to ensure rapid deportations by holding these mothers and their children to a nearly insurmountable and erroneous standard to prove their asylum claims, and by placing countless hurdles in front of them.

“These mothers and their children have sought refuge in the United States after fleeing for their lives from threats of death and violence in their home countries,” said Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “U.S. law guarantees them a fair opportunity to seek asylum. Yet, the government’s policy violates that basic law and core American values — we do not send people who are seeking asylum back into harm’s way. We should not sacrifice fairness for speed in life-or-death situations.”

According to the complaint, the Obama administration is violating long-established constitutional and statutory law by enacting policies that have:

• Categorically prejudged asylum cases with a “detain and deport” policy, regardless of individual circumstances.

• Drastically restricted communication with the outside world for the women and children held at the remote detention center, including communication with attorneys. If women got to make phone calls at all, they were cut off after three minutes when consulting with their attorneys. This makes it impossible to prepare for a hearing or get legal help.

• Given virtually no notice to detainees of critically important interviews used to determine the outcome of asylum requests. Mothers have no time to prepare, are rushed through their interviews, are cut off by officials throughout the process, and are forced to answer traumatic questions, including detailing instances of rape, while their children are listening.

• Led to the intimidation and coercion of the women and children by immigration officers, including being screamed at for wanting to see a lawyer.

“Fast-tracking the deportations of women and children from immigration detention is an assault on due process. There is no way that justice can be served when so many people are being rushed through the system without any real opportunity to assert claims for relief. What we are seeing in Artesia is nothing less than a sham process that values expediency over justice,” said Melissa Crow, legal director of the American Immigration Council.

The plaintiffs include:

• A Honduran mother who fled repeated death threats in her home country to seek asylum in the United States with her two young children. The children’s father was killed by a violent gang that then sent the mother and her children continuous death threats. When she went to the police, they told her that they could not do anything to help her. It is common knowledge where she lived that the police are afraid of the gang and will do nothing to stop it.

• A mother who fled El Salvador with her two children because of threats by the gang that controls the area where they lived. The gang stalked her 12-year-old child every time he left the house and threatened kidnapping. She fears that if the family returns to El Salvador, the gang will kill her son. Some police officers are known to be corrupt and influenced by gangs. The mother says she knows of people who have been killed by gang members after reporting them to police.

• A mother who fled El Salvador with her 10-month old son after rival gangs threatened to kill her and her baby. One gang tried to force the mother to become an informant on the activities of another gang and, when she refused, told her she had 48 hours to leave or be killed.

“The women and children detained in Artesia have endured brutal murders of loved ones, rapes, death threats, and similar atrocities that no mother or child ever should have to endure, and our government is herding them through the asylum process like cattle,” said Trina Realmuto, an attorney at the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. “The deportation-mill in Artesia lacks even the most basic protections, like notice and the opportunity to be heard, that form the cornerstone of due process in this country.”

The lawsuit, M.S.P.C. v. Johnson, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Co-counsel in this case include the law firms of Jenner & Block, and Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale, LLP; and the ACLU of New Mexico, ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties, and ACLU of the Nation’s Capital.

“Any mother will do whatever it takes to make sure her children are safe from harm’s way,” said Karen Tumlin, managing attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. “Our plaintiffs are no different: they have fled their homes to protect their children, only to find that the U.S. deportation system is intent upon placing them back in the dangerous situations they left. We are filing this lawsuit today to ensure that each mother is able to have her fair day in court and that we are not sending children and their mothers back to violence or their deaths.”

The complaint is available at www.nilc.org/document.html?id=1129.

Written declarations submitted by witnesses to injustice at the Artesia, New Mexico, immigration detention facility are available atwww.nilc.org/artesiadecs.html.

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House Vote on Refugee Children

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 1, 2014

CONTACT
Adela de la Torre, [email protected], 213-400-7822

NILC: Shameful Display of Politics Attacks Women and Children Fleeing Violence

WASHINGTON — In a stunning display of cold political gamesmanship and miscalculation, the GOP-led House of Representatives hastily passed a measure today that would roll back due process protections for child refugees, a measure whose effect would be to deport many children back to violent and even deadly situations. The measure also would provide a small amount of temporary relief money, but only through the end of September.

As threatening as the House bill is to refugee children, anti-immigrant extremists in the House also demanded a floor vote to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program established two years ago for eligible “DREAMers” who have grown up in the U.S. According to initial NILC analysis of the legislation, the House-approved bill also would potentially result in preventing victims of domestic violence and other vulnerable immigrants from receiving work authorization.

The following is a statement from Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.

“Today will be remembered as one of the most shameful days ever on Capitol Hill. Instead of showing compassion to children, Congress played politics, advancing legislation that, if it is enacted, will place children directly in harm’s way. To make matters worse, Republicans voted — for the fifth time — to deport DREAMers, immigrant youth who have grown up in the U.S.

“Lost in the debate is a simple fact: We are talking about children who deserve our love and support. Reducing these children to nothing more than another political football and fighting to find ways to shuttle these children back to violence more quickly isn’t just bad politics — it is cruel.

“Attacking women and children clearly isn’t enough for this House. In its rush to roll back deferred action for DREAMers, the House has also gone after survivors of domestic violence and other immigrants, potentially stripping them of their ability to work as well. Every representative who voted for this poorly constructed, misguided piece of legislation should be ashamed.

“When Congress reconvenes in September, we hope its members will move beyond hyper-partisan votes to reject refugees, sue the president and deport DREAMers, and instead will get back to the business of keeping our government from careening from one emergency funding proposal to another. But given today’s votes, it appears that House Republicans are committed to being anti-immigrant and extremist.

“Today’s vote makes it clear that the president must act on his own to provide solutions to support both the refugee children and the 11 million aspiring citizens. He has the authority. Now he must use it.”

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Administrative Relief Should Protect Workers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 30, 2014

CONTACT
Adela de la Torre, [email protected], 213-400-7822

Executive Action on Immigration Should Protect Workers and Uphold Labor Standards

153 groups urge Department of Homeland Security not to interfere with workers’ rights

WASHINGTON — In a letter sent to the Obama administration, a broad coalition of 153 civil rights, faith-based, and labor groups urge that any executive action on immigration uphold workers’ ability to press for their rights on the job.

The letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson calls for “measures to ensure that workplace retaliation and the enforcement of immigration law do not continue to interfere with workers’ ability to assert their rights on the job.” Secretary Johnson is developing specific recommendations on executive actions to address the broken immigration system at the request of President Obama.

As the letter states, the current immigration system is being abused by exploitative employers who use workers’ immigration status against them, maintaining an underground economy characterized by substandard working conditions and below-market or illegally low pay. Workers who complain about substandard or dangerous conditions, wage theft, or civil rights violations are threatened with firing and immigration-based retaliation.

“A policy change is urgently needed,” the letter to Secretary Johnson says. “We urge you to enact broad relief along with enforcement reforms to guarantee that DHS policies do not interfere with workers’ rights and that immigration enforcement and retaliation are not used by abusive employers. By acting and improving protections for workers who expose illegal workplace conditions, you will raise the standards of all this nation’s workplaces.”

Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, said, “All workers, regardless of where they were born, should be able to stand up for a safe and just work environment without fearing that they will be ripped from their families by standing up for the safety of their coworkers. Unfortunately, that’s the reality many immigrant workers face today.”

“Until this issue is addressed, abusive employers will continue to game the system at the expense of good employers, and workers’ job site conditions and pay will remain artificially depressed, dragging down the economy,” Hincapié said. “President Obama has the legal authority and moral responsibility to act now.”

Added Sarita Gupta, executive director of Jobs With Justice, “We have renewed hope that we will see substantive relief from our nation’s broken immigration system this year. But relief must come with the responsibility of ensuring that our nation’s most vulnerable workers will have their rights protected on the job. Bad employers should no longer be able to game the system at the expense of all working people.”

Rocio Saenz, executive vice president of SEIU said, “The letter is intended to call DHS’s attention to the downward impact that workplace immigration enforcement can have on wages and working conditions. Our experience is that some of the worst employers actually benefit from the current policies because those who pay the best in a given industry tend to be targeted disproportionately, which lowers wages for all workers.”

“We urge President Obama to take immediate action to protect the millions of immigrant workers currently facing labor abuse,” said Saket Soni, executive director of the National Guestworker Alliance. “The undocumented cannot be a permanent underclass of exploited workers. We need strong worker protections to end their exploitation — and to lift the floor for the tens of millions of U.S. workers alongside them.”

The letter to Secretary Johnson is available atwww.nilc.org/document.html?id=1116.

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Health Equity and Accountability Act of 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 30, 2014

CONTACT
Adela de la Torre, 213-400-7822, [email protected]

NILC: House Bill Takes Another Step Toward Health Equity for All

WASHINGTON — Health care champions Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Donna Christensen (D-VI) made a bold statement in favor of health equity today by introducing the Health Equity and Accountability Act of 2014 (HEAA).

The measure, which was introduced on behalf of the Congressional Tri-Caucus (the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus, and Congressional Hispanic Caucus), seeks to ensure that everyone living in the U.S. has access to affordable health coverage. It also would improve meaningful access to health care and coverage for people with limited English proficiency, create jobs in the growing health care sector, and increase investments in innovative health delivery methods and technologies to improve health outcomes and reduce health care costs.

The HEAA builds on the foundation of the Affordable Care Act and further advances measures to address and eliminate health and health care disparities experienced by the growing numbers of immigrant, minority, and underserved communities in the U.S. Below is a statement from Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center:

“The Affordable Care Act’s first year of open enrollment served as a sobering reminder of the fact that for millions of Americans — native-born and immigrant alike — the promise of quality, affordable health care remains unrealized. While millions now have coverage, too many others have been shut out of access to affordable health care.

“That’s why legislation such as the Health Equity and Accountability Act of 2014 is so important. This proposal will increase access to quality coverage for all Americans, regardless of where they were born or how much money they have.

“We will continue to work hard — with members of Congress, with community organizations, and with health care providers and advocates — to make sure that the sound proposals outlined in the HEAA become reality.”

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Child Tax Credit Vote

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 25, 2014

CONTACT
Gebe Martinez, [email protected], 703-731-9505

For Shame: House Majority Votes to Harm Millions of Citizen and Latino Children

National Immigration Law Center chides House’s latest attack on children

WASHINGTON — The conservative-led U.S. House of Representatives voted Friday to deny the refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to as many as 5.5 million children — children who are mostly U.S. citizens and Latino — while permanently expanding the tax credit for higher income households.

The vote came in a year in which House conservatives have advanced measures that have little chance of becoming law but clearly show their callous disregard for the most vulnerable in our society, including the poor, Latinos, immigrant communities, and even children.

The proposed changes to the tax credit would deny the refundable portion of the credit to tax filers using an IRS-issued Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) instead of a Social Security number. The changes would also expand the CTC to higher income families making up to $205,000 per year, while failing to extend a provision that allows working poor families earning as little as $3,000 per year to access the CTC.

The House’s vote to push lower-income families deeper into poverty comes just one day after House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposed an “anti-poverty” program that would punish families living in poverty if they do not meet benchmarks for success.

The following is a statement by Marielena Hincapié, executive director of National Immigration Law Center (NILC):

“It is a true irony that a House leader, the Budget Committee chairman, would propose benchmarks for success for the poor, when the Congress does everything it can to prevent these families from succeeding, as this CTC vote illustrates.

“This House has failed to increase the minimum wage and extend unemployment benefits. It shamefully cuts needed hunger and health programs.

“The CTC has been a highly effective tool in fighting poverty. In 2012, the program helped more than 3 million American taxpaying familiesclimb out of poverty. Never mind that the tax credit only goes to working poor families, and that those who would be cut off earn an average of $21,000 a year.

“This Congress has repeatedly ignored good policy options and made bad political judgments by attacking children, the poor, Latinos, and immigrants. We will continue to raise our voices in opposition until the values of compassion and fairness are returned to the House.”

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Refugee Moms & Kids in Immigration Detention

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 24, 2014

CONTACT
Gebe Martinez, National Immigration Law Center, [email protected], 703-731-9505, or
Tara Tidwell, Heartland Alliance, [email protected], 312-660-1337

Immigrants’ Rights Advocates Call for Moratorium on Deportation of Refugee Women and Children at Artesia Detention Center Until Basic Due Process Needs Are Met

*** A recording of today’s telephonic news conference is available here ***

WASHINGTON — Today, immigrants’ rights lawyers and advocates called on the government to halt deportations of women and children in custody at the remote Artesia family detention center in New Mexico, where the U.S. government began warehousing Central American children and women three weeks ago.

Lawyers and activists representing 22 groups were the first members of the public permitted in the Artesia facility this week during tightly controlled tours. During a telephonic press briefing the groups also demanded that the Obama administration stop the expansion of family detention and allow refugee families to be placed in humane, effective, and far less costly alternative forms of custody. Such a shift would free up resources to address dire access to counsel and due process concerns advocates observed during their visits.

“It was clear that the women and children were confused, intimidated, and had not been given an adequate opportunity to express their fear until deportation was imminent,” said Royce Murray, director of policy, National Immigrant Justice Center. “Forcing vulnerable families through an expedited deportation process without access to lawyers is resulting in egregious due process violations and denying individuals’ rights to seek asylum protection. It is inevitable that the U.S. government is deporting people to places where they face persecution and violence.”

Michelle Brané, director, Migrant Rights and Justice, Women’s Refugee Commission, said, “Plain and simple, family detention is an inhumane and damaging process. It profoundly and irreversibly affects the physical and mental health of children and breaks down parent-child relationships. At Artesia, our concerns go beyond conditions. The administration’s intent to deport everyone as quickly as possible for optics is sacrificing critical due process procedures and sending families — mothers, babies, and children — back despite clear concerns for their safety in violation of U.S. and international law.”

The advocates recounted pervasive confusion among women and children over how to make phone calls and find lawyers from inside the detention center, which effectively cut them off from the outside world and any meaningful opportunity to navigate the complex asylum process. A slip of paper provided to individuals when as they arrived at the facility contained only three lawyers’ names, and officers denied detainees access to phones as punishment when children misbehaved. A U.S. Department of Homeland Security officer told advocates that three families had been hastily pulled from a Guatemala-bound deportation flight on Tuesday because they expressed a fear of persecution in their home country.

“What the U.S. government is doing is unconscionable,” said Cecillia Wang, director, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “It is an affront to America’s values and laws to return immigrants who are fleeing for their lives while depriving them of due process, and to force vulnerable children to make their case without a lawyer. The government should suspend deportations from this facility as long as there are not legitimate and fair ways for people there to seek asylum and protection.”

The two on-site visits on Tuesday — one by advocates and another by a team of lawyers — were allowed only after a Los Angeles federal district court judge last week ordered the federal government to allow rights groups to have access to detained children in Nogales, AZ. Within 24 hours of the order, the federal government transferred the detainees to other facilities, but access to Artesia was allowed.

The legal battle stems from a decades-old case, now titled Orantes-Hernandez v. Holder, that resulted in a federal court order protecting the due process rights of detained people from El Salvador.

The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) is lead counsel in theOrantes case along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Immigrants’ Rights Project, ACLU of Southern California, and Munger Tolles & Olson LLP.

“What we witnessed at the Artesia facility is horrific. Given the egregious due process violations, the administration must cease any deportations from Artesia until we can guarantee that each individual’s due process rights are being safeguarded,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director, National Immigration Law Center. “We must find alternatives to detention for these mothers, children and families. Congress should also approve the administration’s supplemental funding request without legislative changes, as soon as possible.”

A supplemental funding bill introduced this week by Sen. Mikulski (D-MD) requests $124.5 million to provide access to counsel for unaccompanied children seeking refuge at the southern border and critical resources for the overburdened immigration court system.

Among the organizations that participated in the Artesia detention center tours were: ACLU of New Mexico; Catholic Charities Legal Services of Las Cruces, NM; Detention Watch Network; First Focus; Human Rights First; Human Rights Watch; National Immigration Forum; National Immigrant Justice Center; National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health; New Mexico Immigration Law Center; Women’s Refugee Commission; and Young Women United.

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