INDICTMENT OF USDOJ for Cleveland May Day Immigrant Rights Action
don bryant
BEFORE THE COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
OF CLEVELAND, OHIO
THE PEOPLE OF NORTHERN OHIO
V.
U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFFERSON BEAUREGARD SESSIONS III
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Indictment
The People charge that:
Introduction
U.S. Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, who is sworn to uphold the law and defend the U.S. Constitution has failed to protect Due Process of immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, Muslims, and DACA recipients. These immigrants and refugees do have due process rights. And the reason is because the Constitution uses the word “persons” rather than “citizens.” And the Supreme Court has long ago held that immigrants and seekers of asylum have due process rights.
1. On or about April 3, 2018 Manuel Duran, a prominent Latino journalist in Memphis was arrested, for journalizing a demonstration. He was then turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for unlawful presence due to a ruling made in absentia, which means that there was an immigration hearing held, he did not attend. He did not get proper notice of that hearing. ICE has been entering courts with something called administrative warrants. Administrative warrants are not issued by a judge. They’re issued solely by ICE. ICE is effectively writing their own warrants to come into the courts. What we are asking is that they not be allowed to come into the courts without a judicial warrant, a judicial warrant signed by a judge.”
2. The Trump administration has ended a policy exempting pregnant women from being jailed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union said ICE needs more—not less—transparency and accountability, adding, “This new policy further exposes the cruelty of Trump’s detention and deportation force by endangering the lives of pregnant immigrant women.” Advocates say many women enter the U.S. seeking to escape domestic violence, with some reporting they became pregnant after surviving rape and sexual assault.
3. LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana, a detainee writes, “Through this experience I have learned first-hand details about the treatment our immigrants receive before they are deported. How they keep the lights on day and night and you have to sleep with a towel over your eyes. In Tacoma, Washington, at least 120 immigrants detained by ICE at the Northwest Detention Center began a hunger strike in February, protesting abuses at the hands of guards with the for-profit prison company GEO Group. The prisoners are demanding larger portions of edible, nutritious food; an end to arbitrary searches; and an end to the widespread use of solitary confinement at the prison. In Georgia, immigrants imprisoned at a for-profit detention center have filed a class action lawsuit, claiming they were forced to work for $8 a day—or less—in violation of U.S. labor law. The suit alleges that prisoners at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, who refuse to join so-called voluntary work programs face retaliation by guards, including threats of criminal prosecution. One former prisoner says he worked 8-hour shifts in the prison’s kitchen for up to seven days per week, earning just $4 per day. He says when he refused to work, he was put in solitary confinement for 10 days. The prison is operated by CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America.
4. José Demar Fuentes, a 30-year-old college graduate, arrived in November with his 1-year-old son, Mateo, from El Salvador, where Fuentes was on a gang’s execution list, according to his lawyer, Noreen Barcena. Father and son entered the United States legally, presenting themselves to an immigration officer, providing birth certificates and other documentation, and requesting asylum to save their lives. Several days later, immigration officers came and took Mateo. “They basically pried my client’s son from his arms and told him that he had to give up his son,” Barcena told me. “They were both crying.” Mateo ended up in foster care in Texas for about three months and had little or no contact with his family. Even kidnappers allow more communication. Caitlin Dickerson of The Times reported that more than 700 children have been separated from immigrant parents since October.
5. Judge John D. Bates joined the chorus of federal judges who have stood up to Trump’s illegal cancellation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) by enjoining the Administration’s rescission of the program. He courageously went further than the courts before him, ruling that the USCIS should not only continue to process DACA renewals, but should accept new applications from qualified Dreamers. Judge Bates’ decision is significant, because it shows, yet again, that federal judges across the country are zealously guarding the rule of law in the face of Trump’s anti-immigrant extremism. According to Juan Escalante, a DACA recipient and Communications Manager of America’s Voice, “Not only were the lives of 800,000 aspiring Americans put on hold when Donald Trump cruelly ended the DACA program, but the futures of countless young Dreamers, who were looking forward to ‘aging in’ to DACA, were also dashed. All across the country, a new generation of Dreamers is growing up without the ability to drive or work all due to the Trump Administration's hateful attacks towards immigrants.
6. The US Department of Justice and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency are deploying agents to the courthouses to arrest undocumented immigrants. This practice violates the rights of defendants, victims and witnesses. ICE has been entering these courts with something called administrative warrants. Administrative warrants are not issued by a judge. They’re issued solely by ICE. ICE is effectively writing their own warrants to come into the courts. What we are asking is that they not be allowed to come into the courts without a judicial warrant, a judicial warrant signed by a judge.”
7. The government’s practice of indefinitely detaining thousands of immigrants in jails across the country, for months or even years, while they fight their deportation cases, without ever letting them have a bond hearing, that basic process where you get to see a judge who determines whether you need to be locked up in the first place. On any given day, there are thousands of immigrants who have lived here since they were infants, are green card holders, who end up being put in the detention and deportation system and spend months or years locked up.
8. The government’s ban on travelers from six majority-Muslim countries unconstitutionally discriminates against people because of their religious beliefs. Writing for a 9-4 majority at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Roger Gregory wrote that Trump’s travel ban was “unconstitutionally tainted with animus toward Islam,” adding, “On a fundamental level, the proclamation second-guesses our nation’s dedication to religious freedom and tolerance.”
9. The Justice Department has ordered immigration judges to speed up deportation hearings and will evaluate their job performance based on how quickly they close cases. The quotas mean that beginning October 1, 2018 judges will be expected to complete at least 700 cases a year. This will impact due process of defendants. The vast majority of deportations are what’s known as summary deportations, so people who are very quickly turned around directly at the border and never given a chance to see a judge. In some cases, asylum seekers will be returned to their native country and be killed or tortured.
10. Immigrant women testify that they were never asked the required questions about fear of returning to their home country, or were ignored, mocked, or even sexually propositioned by U.S. agents after expressing their fears—and then deported to harm. The U.S. government’s current policy of choice is to lock up asylum seekers—including families with young children—in immigration detention centers. These jail-like facilities often exacerbate the trauma asylum seekers face and impede access to legal counsel. We condemn the Department of Justice’s temporary halt a critical program that provides legal information to detained immigrants and asylum seekers. The suspension of the Legal Orientation Program (LOP), which has long enjoyed bipartisan support and provided legal information to over 53,000 detainees last year alone, is the latest step by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to undermine due process and access to legal counsel in the U.S. immigration court system.
