ACLU alleges abuse of children by Customs and Border Protection

University of Chicago Law School students review documents with professor Claudia Flores, the director of the school's International Human Rights Clinic. (Photo credit: Lloyd DeGrane / University of Chicago Law School as reported by The Chicago Tribune )

University of Chicago Law School students review documents with professor Claudia Flores, the director of the school’s International Human Rights Clinic. (Photo credit: Lloyd DeGrane / University of Chicago Law School as reported by The Chicago Tribune )

Immigrant children who crossed the border suffered abuse and neglect from federal officials, according to a report released May 23 by the ACLU’s Border Litigation Project in partnership with the University of Chicago Law School.

“Elbowing children in the stomach. Lifting a child by the neck. Kicking a child in the ribs. These are all things the American Civil Liberties Union says immigrant children who crossed the border alone experienced while in custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” The Chicago Tribune reports.

Unaccompanied children who cross the border are placed in juvenile detention centers while they await court decisions on whether they can be released to a relative in the U.S., or if they will remain in custody or be deported.

The allegations stemmed from a review of 30,000 pages of documents by three law students, according to Claudia Flores, director of the University of Chicago’s International Human Rights Clinic.

Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Daniel Hetlage said in a statement that the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General completed an investigation and found that the claims were unsubstantiated.

Supreme Court strikes down bond hearings for detainees

Supreme_Court2In a major immigration case, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Jennings v. Rodriguez, a class action lawsuit challenging the federal government’s practice of jailing immigrants while they litigate their deportation cases. It ruled that detainees held by the government for possible deportation are not entitled to a bond hearing even after months or years of detention. Civil rights advocates, such as the ACLU, question whether it is constitutional to “lock up immigrants indefinitely.”

The Washington Post reported on the Feb. 27 ruling, noting, “In a splintered 5 to 3 decision, the court’s conservatives said that the relevant statute does not even ‘hint,’ as Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote, at the broad reading of the right to bail hearings adopted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.”

The American Civil Liberties Union argued, “In the appeals court, we fought for and won on the principle that immigrants should be given the opportunity to present their case to a judge, allowing that judge to decide whether the detainee could be released without risk of flight or threat to public safety.”

Trump’s Immigration Plan Brings Several Early Legal Challenges

Demonstrators gather outside the Trump International Hotel in Washington on Sunday to protest President Trump’s executive order on immigration. (Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post) (Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post)

Demonstrators gather outside the Trump International Hotel in Washington on Sunday to protest President Trump’s executive order on immigration. (Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post) (Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post)

President Trump’s immigration orders over the weekend brought both protests and legal challenges, with several judges ordering halts to the program and scholars offering opinions. The Washington Post had a good article outlining the civil concerns, including listing some of the groups opposing the move:

“… the American Civil Liberties Union, which won the injunction from a New York judge Saturday, immigrant legal aid societies, public-interest groups and the alliance of 16 state attorney generals.”

The story also predicted more challenges under both constitutional grounds and legal decisions over decades.

See the WaPo story here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/scholars-many-more-legal-challenges-likely-for-trumps-executive-order-on-immigration/2017/01/29/2801ffee-e64b-11e6-bf6f-301b6b443624_story.html?utm_term=.569746bb8037