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WHO WE'RE SUING (AND WHY)
- Council Sues to Learn More About Immigration Courts Unpredictably Accelerating Immigrants’ Trials
This month, the Council and the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (CAIR) filed a lawsuit against the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) to learn more about how immigration courts accelerate immigrants’ individual hearings with limited notice to them or their lawyers. Immigration attorneys representing individuals in removal proceedings have reported that immigration courts frequently move up the date of their clients’ trial dates with limited to no notice about the rescheduling and without any input from immigrants or their lawyers.
To learn more about these practices, the Council and the CAIR Coalition filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with EOIR on October 28, 2022. EOIR, however, failed to respond to the request.
Advancing immigration hearings with little notice can have serious consequences. Individual hearings are where immigrants fighting their removal have an opportunity to present their cases before an immigration judge. The records sought in this lawsuit should help clarify the type of cases being advanced, whether EOIR follows the rules on how to notify immigrants and their lawyers of the rescheduling, and the appropriate course of action lawyers should take when the workload imposed on them by EOIR jeopardizes the zealous representation immigrants need to guarantee due process.
Read more: Council Sues EOIR To Find Out Why Immigrants’ Court Hearings Are Moved Up on Short Notice
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Council Sues DHS and ICE to Obtain $10 Million Dollar Plan to Improve Legal Access in Detention
The Council, ACLU National Prison Project, and the New York Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of the ACLU to compel the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to respond to a FOIA request. The request asked for a report that the agencies were obligated to prepare for Congress regarding a $10 million appropriation made to improve legal access for immigrants in ICE detention.
Immigrants in ICE detention face significant barriers to access to counsel such as their inability to make confidential calls to their lawyers, lack of telephone access, and obstacles to sending and receiving correspondence, including email. ICE often actively impedes detained people from accessing the most basic modes of communication necessary for attorney-client communication. These barriers to access legal assistance can contribute to prolonged detention and deportation.
Members of Congress have expressed concern regarding DHS’s systematic failure to ensure that people in immigration detention have the ability to find and communicate with attorneys. On December 29, 2022, Congress passed a law allocating $10 million to DHS to improve access to legal resources for individuals in detention and required the agency to provide Congress with an expenditure plan for these funds within 60 days of the law’s enactment. To date, no one has seen the report that Congress required ICE to provide.
This lawsuit hopes to make this report public to see how ICE is addressing Congress’ concerns about the agency’s failure to address barriers to detained immigrants’ access to legal resources.
Read more: Council, ACLU Sue DHS and ICE To Obtain Plans for $10 Million Meant to Improve Legal Access in Detention
LATEST FOIA REQUESTS
- Council Files FOIA to Obtain Records About CBP’s Treatment of Migrants at the U.S.-Mexico Border
Since May 2023, the government has been requiring that asylum seekers make appointments for processing at the U.S.-Mexico border via a mobile phone app—U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) One—to maintain asylum eligibility. However, little is known about how officers at the U.S.-Mexico border are treating asylum seekers who approach ports of entry (“POEs”) without a CBP One appointment. Court rulings have held that refusal to process noncitizens arriving in the United States seeking asylum is unlawful. Yet, media reports published since the implementation of the CBP One requirement suggest that thousands of vulnerable noncitizens are awaiting processing because they have not been able to schedule an inspection appointment via CBP One.
The regulation that established the CBP One requirement, and its preamble, makes clear that CBP officers must allow asylum seekers to access inspection and processing, even if they don’t have an appointment–only later in the process are asylum adjudicators supposed determine whether migrants are eligible for asylum.
The American Immigration Council and the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies filed a FOIA to find out more about these practices related to turning away asylum seekers at the border to better understand whether the agency is using CBP One to limit asylum seekers’ access to ports of entry.
The records they seek relate to 1) CBP’s procedures on how to manage noncitizens who approach ports of entry without CBP One appointments; 2) CBP’s continued use of metering of noncitizens and its capacity to process individuals; 3) communications between CBP officers and Mexican officials regarding immigrants’ access to U.S. ports of entry; and 4) data on the number of noncitizens processed by CBP at southern border ports of entry with and without CBP One appointments.
Read more: Council Seeks Records on CBP’s Treatment of Migrants at the U.S.-Mexico Border
The American Immigration Council works to hold the government accountable on immigration issues. We harness freedom of information requests, litigation, and advocacy to expose wrongdoing and promote transparency within immigration agencies.
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