At the New Orleans ICE office, which handles parole decisions for five states in the South, only two out of 130 requests were approved in 2018.

An ICE detention center in downtown Los Angeles. Credit: MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images

A few months ago, I introduced you to a federal court case called Heredia Mons v. Wolf, filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center last year challenging the Trump administration’s refusal to release many asylum seekers through something called parole.

I mentioned the lawsuit as part of my reporting about conditions at ICE detention centers ([link removed]) amid the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has the authority to grant parole to detained asylum seekers while they await a decision on their immigration cases. And a decade ago, the agency granted nearly all of these requests.

But under the Trump administration, denials have surged. At the New Orleans ICE office alone, which handles parole decisions for five states in the South, only two out of 130 requests were approved in 2018. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg sided with the law center’s attorneys in September and ordered ICE to comply with its own parole directive ([link removed]) , which states that the agency can grant parole in cases in which the asylum seeker isn’t a flight risk or a danger to the community.

Boasberg also ordered ICE to file monthly reports, beginning in December 2019, summarizing its parole determinations. The reports include the applicant’s name, identification number, detention facility, and the date and outcome of the parole determination, among other things. But these reports are filed under seal, meaning the public can’t see them. The only way to get a sense of the information they include is if attorneys in the case mention the monthly totals in other court records that aren’t sealed.

But we’re trying to change that. Last week, our attorney filed a motion to unseal these monthly reports. The motion explains that Reveal would not oppose requests from attorneys to redact the names and any identifying information of detainees mentioned in the reports. Bottom line: We want to see the records for ourselves and be able to tell the public how often ICE is approving or denying parole requests, especially in the middle of a pandemic, when public health experts ([link removed]) have warned the government repeatedly that the virus spreads easily in congregate settings such as ICE detention centers.

“CIR (The Center for Investigative Reporting) is committed to making publicly available whatever portion of the records are unsealed in a way that educates the public through its reporting and by providing context for these important documents,” our motion reads.

Read our filing here. ([link removed])

------------------------------------------------------------



** IMMIGRANT RIGHTS GROUPS DEMAND RELEASE OF BLACK DETAINEES IN ISOLATION
------------------------------------------------------------

In other news related to our continued ICE detention reporting: The Southern Poverty Law Center – along with several other organizations – filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security urging the agency to release Black asylum seekers who are on a hunger strike at the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center in Louisiana.

The detainees in isolation spoke to me ([link removed]) back in June, when they organized a peaceful protest in honor of Juneteenth. "Knowing the U.S. is one of the nations that protects human rights and freedom of speech, we hope that at this particular moment, someone could hear us,” one of them told me at the time.

Earlier this month, about 45 detainees, most of them from Cameroon, declared they were going on hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention and the racist treatment they have experienced inside detention, according to the complaint. An analysis from the Southern Poverty Law Center found that Cameroonians are two and a half times more likely to have their parole determinations denied than other asylum seekers from countries outside Africa.

This week, guards in “full military gear” escorted the detainees on hunger strike with the use of force into an isolation unit, according to the complaint. “Officers restrained three men, climbing on top of them and attempting to place them in choke-holds. One man on hunger strike who had his hands up described being thrown to the ground with six officers on top of him. He felt he was going to be suffocated, and had bruises all over his body.”

Read the complaint here. ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------


** 3 THINGS WE’RE READING
------------------------------------------------------------

1. Volunteers are struggling to provide schooling to migrant children at the border during the pandemic. (The New York Times ([link removed]) )

With little to no help from the U.S or Mexican governments, volunteers working along the border mobilized in the last year to offer schooling for the children of asylum seekers waiting in tent camps for their U.S. immigration court dates. Then the pandemic hit.

The kicker: (Ana) Morales Becerra’s children, along with the other 75 kids at the three shelters, were suddenly adrift, in lockdown, while their parents learned their court appointments to apply for asylum would be delayed because of the coronavirus. Or worse: that they could be forced to return to the violence they were fleeing. As contributions and aid dwindled during the next two months, the children at Embajadores de Jesús shelter were desperate, stressed and bored without lessons. “All the aid stopped coming. The doctors, donations, the psychologist … everything,” Morales Becerra said. Her eldest son, 12-year-old Jesús, kept a copy of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” which tells the adventures of a young wizard. “Since I had nothing to do, I would finish it and read it again, and again, and again,” he said.

2. From funeral arrangements to grocery delivery, a Mexican priest steps in to help undocumented families in his community. (The New Yorker ([link removed]) )

Immigrants living in Brooklyn consider Juan Carlos Ruiz one of the pillars of their community. As COVID-19 devastated Latino residents, Ruiz has stepped in to the fill the void caused by the state’s failure to help thousands of undocumented residents. He delivers groceries, arranges funerals and advocates for rent cancellation. “I think we’re reaching the stage when things are getting so bad that people who have sacrificed everything to come here and work in New York City are doubting what the whole point is,” he said.

The kicker: Throughout the spring and early summer, Ruiz’s cellphone rang incessantly. People were losing work, going hungry, falling ill, dying. “It was like a war had started,” he told me. A man called Ruiz late one night, after a fistfight with his landlord over rent he couldn’t pay because he’d lost his job. Ruiz heard from an undocumented immigrant who’d been living for several days with the corpse of his brother in their shared apartment; he was afraid to call city authorities but unable to pay a funeral home to retrieve the body. Officials from (the Mexican state) Guerrero were regularly seeking advice on how to repatriate the remains of locals who had died in New York.

3. Funeral homes serving Latino communities are overwhelmed by families in need of their services. (Los Angeles Times ([link removed]) )

Latinos account for 47% of COVID-19 deaths in California, and funeral homes are struggling to keep up with the demand for their services. At the Continental Funeral Home in East Los Angeles, director Magda Maldonado had to rent a small refrigerated storage container to increase the funeral home’s capacity. And with a lag in paperwork from the state, the process of transporting a body to Mexico went from 10 days to almost two months. “It really caught us all off guard,” Maldonado said.

The kicker: Bob Achermann, executive director of the California Funeral Directors Assn., said funeral homes were relying on guidance from the state – but it became confusing to follow at times. “The rules were sometimes changing from week to week, location to location,” he said. “When there were services, only 25% of the space could be occupied and that you were social distancing.” “How do you not hug? How do you not touch during, you know, those times of grief?” he added.

------------------------------------------------------------



** NEWS BREAK: STORYTIME AT THE BARBERSHOP
------------------------------------------------------------

Antonio Brown owns a barbershop in St. Petersburg, Florida. He loves to read and wants to impart his passion for books to young customers. So on Wednesday afternoons, he gives free haircuts to kids ages 4 to 12 who read to him. From behind his barber chair, Brown says, “I’m trying to help mentor the boys, the kids.”

From the Tampa Bay Times story ([link removed]) :

Clumps of hair pile on the floor as R.J. Franklin reads The Same Stuff as Stars from the barber’s chair. He sounds out words, slowly making his way though Katherine Paterson’s young adult novel. Cassiopeia. Briefcase. Anxious.

“Do you know what that word means?” barber Antonio Brown asks. “Anxious.”

“When you’re angry?” the 10-year-old asks.

“It’s when you’re kind of nervous and eager,” Brown explains. “So if your dad says, ‘Hey we’re going to Orlando, you better be good,’ it makes you anxious, right?”

Brown, master barber and owner of Central Station Barbershop & Grooming on Central Avenue in St. Petersburg, teaches kids ages 4 to 12 how to read from 4 to 6 p.m. every Wednesday as they get their hair cut. And if they read the book to him, they get to keep the book and get a free haircut.

Brown, 39, came up with the idea five years ago when he first opened the shop. He wanted to do something different in the barbershop – something that would help kids.

“I was always passionate about reading, so now I’m carrying it on,” Brown said. “I don’t take for granted knowing how to read. Being able to teach to those younger than me is something I’m dedicated to doing.”
------------------------------------------------------------

Your tips have been vital to our immigration coverage. Keep them coming: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .

– Laura C. Morel
Fact-based journalism is worth fighting for.
Yes, I want to help! ([link removed])
Your support helps give everyone access to credible, unbiased facts.
============================================================

This email was sent to [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
why did I get this? ([link removed]) unsubscribe from this list ([link removed]) update subscription preferences ([link removed])
The Center for Investigative Reporting . 1400 65th St., Suite 200 . Emeryville, CA 94608 . USA