ACLU Lawsuit Over Immigrant Detentions Could Directly Affect Those Held at Wyatt
GoLocalProv News Team
ACLU Lawsuit Over Immigrant Detentions Could Directly Affect Those Held at Wyatt
Read the Lawsuit Here
The class-action lawsuit comes after an agreement between ICE and Wyatt earlier this year to house detainees arrested at the Southern border.
Wyatt had not housed immigrant detainees since 2008, when Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng, an ICE detainee, died in Wyatt custody following months of abuse and lack of medical care.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe Lawsuit
The lawsuit, filed last week by the ACLU’s Massachusetts and New Hampshire affiliates, is on behalf of immigrants who are currently jailed across New England due to detention hearings in which the detainee has been required to bear the burden of proof as to whether they should be detained.
The suit argues that the practice is unlawful.
“Liberty is supposed to be the norm throughout the American legal system, and detention a carefully limited exception. In immigration proceedings, however, this principle is reversed. Although these are civil proceedings, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is jailing numerous alleged noncitizens . . . simply for failing to affirmatively prove, to the satisfaction of an immigration judge, that they should be free. . . Unless this Court intervenes, ICE will continue to imprison the Petitioners and others like them without ever being required to prove that this imprisonment is necessary to protect public safety or ensure their appearance in immigration court,” writes the ACLU in their lawsuit.
The suit seeks a court order declaring that these detainees are “entitled to a bond hearing at which the government bears the burden to justify continued detention by proving by clear and convincing evidence that the detainee is a danger to others or a flight risk, and, even if he or she is, that no … combination of conditions will reasonably assure the detainee’s future appearance and the safety of the community…”
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