The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE), the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, and prison operator Geo Group face a new lawsuit in California for hampering communication between detained immigrants and their lawyers, according to the statement. today.
The complaint ensures that the government and the officials in the detention centers of Adelanto and Theo Lacy make it almost impossible for the majority of inmates to contact and consult with their lawyers, which would violate the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.
“The United States government has placed arbitrary barriers between detained immigrants and their lawyers, which must be eliminated in order for justice to be done,” said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). plaintiffs
Ernesto Torres, 35, is one of the immigrants named in the legal claim, an undocumented immigrant who has lived in the United States since 2002 and was about to be deported because he could not get a lawyer to represent him.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Immigrant Rights Clinic of Stanford University (on behalf of three detained immigrants), and other immigrant rights organizations filed the legal claim last Friday in the Court of District in Riverside, California.
The lawsuit says that every time the Mexican tries to make a call to the organizations that provide legal advice from the Detention Center of Adelanto, he hears a message informing him that the “phone call can not be completed”.
Geo Group is responsible for the management of the detention center where Torres is located.
The judge handling the case of the Spaniard has granted him two extensions to present his case. Torres has until January 2 to get who represents him legally and knows his case.
Another of the plaintiffs is Jason Nsinano, detained for more than three years and currently at Theo Lacy, a prison run by the Orange County Sheriff.
Nsinano is kept in special custody and only has access to the telephone for two hours, coinciding with the fact that the hours of service to the public of organizations or lawyers have ended.
The lawsuit asks the court to order the government and authorities to provide the detainees with private and unsupervised telephone calls.
In addition, establish reasonable access for detainees who can not pay for calls and provide sufficient spaces for confidential legal visits.
In a similar case, on June 20, ACLU filed an emergency complaint against the Trump administration for restricting the communication of lawyers and their clients detained in a prison that houses convicts of federal crimes, given the lack of space in the centers. immigration.
A day later, Judge Otis D. Wright II, of the District Court in Los Angeles, ordered the Government to give the detainees access to legal aid. (EFEUSA) .-
