By MARTHA BELLISLE
A group immigrants and legal advocates filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday that seeks to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from arresting migrants who appear at immigration courts for previously scheduled hearings and placing them on a fast-track to deportation.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department and ICE says the arrests of thousands of people at court have stripped them of rights afforded to them under U.S. immigration law and the Fifth Amendment.
The large-scale immigration court arrests that began in May have unleashed fear among asylum-seekers and immigrants. In what has become a familiar scene, a judge will grant a government lawyer’s request to dismiss deportation proceedings against an immigrant while ICE officers wait in the hallway to take them into custody.
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit, said the Trump administration is “weaponizing” immigration courts and chilling participation in the legal process.
”People seeking refuge, safety, or relief should not be arrested, detained, and deported without a chance to be heard and given due process,” Perryman said in a statement.
Messages seeking comment from ICE, Homeland Security and the Justice Department were not immediately returned. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the courts, declined to comment.
President Donald Trump has pledged to deport the most dangerous criminals in the largest deportation program in American history to protect law-abiding citizens, but government data on the detentions show that the majority of people detained by ICE have no criminal convictions.
The lawsuit represents 12 people who have been arrested at court hearings, along with the Immigrant Advocates Response Collaborative and American Gateways, which provide legal services to people who face potential arrest and deportation when they comply with their immigration proceedings by attending a court hearing.
Some of the immigrants have lived in the United States for years and were separated from family members, some who were U.S. citizens, without notice, the lawsuit said. Others fled persecution in their home countries and requested asylum. But those requests were quashed when the government lawyer dismissed their case.
Priyanka Gandhi-Abriano, interim CEO for Immigrant Advocates Response Collaborative, said the arrests are a deliberate attempt to intimidate people.
“Our friends, neighbors, and families are told to ‘do it the right way’ — to follow the legal process,” Gandhi-Abriano said in a statement. “They’re doing just that — showing up to court, complying with the law. Despite this, they’re being arrested and detained.”
Homeland Security officials have defended the practice, saying the Trump administration is implementing the rule of law after former President Joe Biden’s “catch and release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets.”
They said if a person has a credible fear claim, they can continue in the immigration proceedings, but if not claim is found, they’ll be subject to swift deportation.
Keren Zwick, director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center said, “We are witnessing an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. immigration court system by the Trump administration.”
The people attending the hearings to seek permission to stay in the U.S., but they’re being rounded up and “abruptly ripped from their families, homes and livelihoods.”
“Meanwhile, the administration is issuing directives telling immigration judges to violate those same immigration laws and strip people of fundamental due process rights,” Zwick said. “We must continue fighting to overcome the administration’s escalating attacks on the U.S. Constitution and rule of law.”
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