Certain Detained Asylum Seekers Must Receive a Bond Hearing Within 7 Days, Judge Orders

Written by Kristin Macleod-Ball

Asylum seekers are often imprisoned in immigration detention for weeks or months before they can ask a judge to release them, even though they’re entitled to bond hearings. But this injustice may soon be corrected for some asylum seekers. 

On Friday, a U.S. district court judge ruled that certain detained asylum seekers must receive a bond hearing within seven days of requesting one. The Seattle judge also ordered that immigration courts must provide legal protections at the hearings. 

The ruling in the Padilla v. ICE case is a defeat for the Trump administration. It strikes a blow against the ongoing campaign to punish and deter migrants from seeking asylum. 

Judge Marsha J. Peckman ordered the immigration courts to: 

• Provide certain detained asylum seekers with a bond hearing within 7 days of requesting one.
• Put the burden of proof on the Department of Homeland Security—not the asylum seekers—to justify continued detention.
• Record or provide a transcript of the hearings.
• Issue a written decision that explains why an immigration judge decides to grant or deny bond at the time the decision is made.

The case is a nationwide class action brought by detained asylum seekers. The decision, which grants their motion for a preliminary injunction, applies to all detained asylum seekers who entered the United States between ports of entry and then passed an initial screening on their asylum claims called a credible fear interview. The American Immigration Council and Northwest Immigrant Rights Project represent the asylum seekers. 

This order could drastically change the situation of thousands of detained asylum seekers. Many would no longer need to wait for weeks or months to get a bond hearing. 

The order would also put in place important legal protections. Currently, even once they receive bond hearings, asylum seekers are at a disadvantage. They are often unable to gather evidence or obtain legal representation to help with their bond requests while behind bars. Yet, the courts still require they bear the burden of proof to show why they should be released. 

Under this system, asylum seekers also are often left in the dark about why their bond requests are denied. Bond hearings are not generally recorded. Judges also don’t have to explain in writing why they denied bond until after an immigrant has already appealed the decision. This creates serious problem for asylum seekers trying to appeal bond denials. 

These unfair practices leave many immigrants incarcerated during the entire, lengthy asylum process. Immigrants forced to stay in detention are less likely to succeed in their asylum cases. Some may even give up valid claims to remain in the United States to get out of unsafe detention conditions . 

The ruling is set to take effect within 30 days. However, the government could appeal the decision to a higher court or take other steps to prevent it from going into effect in those 30 days. 

This decision is still a first step towards ensuring asylum seekers have access to prompt, fair bond hearings.

 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4103-Asylum-Seekers-Must-Receive-a-Bond-Hearing-Within-7-Days.html

Appeals Court Says Asylum Seekers May Now Challenge Their Deportation in Federal Court

Written by Emma Winger

Many asylum seekers who travel to the United States seeking protection often receive something much less—they are arrested by immigration officials and provided no meaningful way to challenge their deportation in federal court. 

Last week, in Thuraissigiam v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals became the first federal appeals court to say that depriving these asylum seekers of federal court review violated the U.S. Constitution. This decision adds a key level of protection for a vulnerable population currently under attack by the Trump administration. 

Because of their circumstances, asylum seekers are often unable to meet the legal requirements to enter the United States. If they lack proper documentation, they are forced into an expedited removal process. A single asylum officer decides whether their fear is credible and there is only a cursory review by an immigration judge. In Fiscal Year 2016, 41 percent of all deportations were through this expedited removal process. 

The process is deeply flawed. Immigration officers routinely violate even the minimal protections in place for asylum seekers in expedited removal proceedings. Immigration officers fail to inform migrants that they may seek asylum in the United States, do not inquire about their fear of persecution, provide inadequate interpretation, and fail to correctly record the results of the interview or explain the reasons for denying a claim. When an asylum seeker asks for review by an immigration judge, they often do not have an immigration attorney. 

Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, an asylum seeker from Sri Lanka, faced this flawed expedited removal process. In his case, the asylum officer and immigration judge failed to follow the required procedures and failed to apply the correct legal standards when they evaluated his fear claim. He tried to challenge it in federal court, but the district court held that it could not consider Mr. Thuraissigiam’s claims under the immigration laws. 

When he appealed that decision, the Ninth Circuit reversed it, concluding that the laws limiting federal court review violated the Suspension Clause. The court explained that the Suspension Clause—part of the original Constitution and therefore pre-dating even the Bill of Rights—was designed to protect access to the courts. This vital protection, available through habeas corpus proceedings, has been accessible to non-citizens as well as citizens in the United States since its founding. 

The court concluded that Mr. Thuraissigiam and other asylum seekers who raise similar procedural challenges to the expedited removal process have the right to challenge their expedited removal process in federal court. 

Though the government could ask for an additional review from a larger group of Ninth Circuit judges or take the case to the Supreme Court, the decision in this case is significant. For now, more asylum seekers may have their day in court, securing a vital protection and giving them an opportunity to challenge a rushed deportation process. 

Fuente: http://immigrationimpact.com/

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4062-Asylum-Seekers-May-Now-Challenge-Their-Deportation-in-Federal-Court.html

The Judicial Black Sites the Government Created to Speed Up Deportations

Written by Katie Shepherd

As the Trump administration continues to strip away due process in immigration courts, the recent creation of two “Immigration Adjudication Centers” is cause for concern. The two new facilities are called “Centers,” not “courts,” despite being places where judges decide whether to issue orders of deportation.

The Centers came out of a “ Caseload Reduction Plan” devised by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) as one of several mechanisms designed to reduce the number of cases pending before the immigration courts. This initiative first surfaced in December 2017 ostensibly as one of a series of ways to address the record-high backlog within the immigration court system. In fact, EOIR’s caseload has almost tripled since 2011, from fewer than 300,000 pending cases to 810,000 as of November 2018. This is likely to worsen given the current government shutdown. 

A total of fifteen Immigration Judges currently sit in the two Centers—four in Falls Church, Virginia, and 11 in Fort Worth, Texas. 

It is unclear whether the Centers are open to the public, despite laws stating such hearings must be. All the cases heard by immigration judges in the Centers will be conducted exclusively by video-teleconference (VTC), with immigrants, their lawyers, and prosecutors in different locations. 

According to one source , it’s likely that “thousands of immigration cases will be heard with respondents never seeing a judge face-to-face.” 

The utter lack of transparency around these Centers is alarming, given the documented concerns with the use of video teleconferencing and the current administration’s commitment to speed up immigration court hearings, even at the risk of diminished due process. 

Speeding up cases could benefit detained individuals who often languish for months or even years behind bars before their release or deportation. However, the impact of these Centers overall could be much more ominous. 

The Centers raise serious questions about whether detained immigrants will be disadvantaged by the arrangement. These questions include: 

• How will an individual who is unrepresented and detained in a facility three time zones away from the judge submit critical evidence to the court during a hearing?
• How can an immigration judge adequately observe an asylum seeker’s demeanor for credibility without being in the same room?
• Will the immigration judges be required to postpone hearings if there are issues with the telephonic interpreters, and could this lead to prolonged detention?

Further, only 14 percent of detained immigrants have attorneys and many may not have the ability to adequately prepare for their cases on an expedited timeframe. A very real outcome of speeding up cases in this manner is that many immigrants are deported even though they may have valid claims to stay in the United States. 

Until the government is more transparent with these Centers, there is simply no way of knowing how many detained individuals—including children—have been deported without the opportunity to obtain counsel, and without appropriate safeguards preventing their removal to imminent harm. 

 

 

Source: http://immigrationimpact.com/ 

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3992-the-government-Created-to-Speed-Up-Deportations.html