Haitian Bridge Alliance and the National Bar Association have noticed that detainees are not being treated according to the standard procedure. A credible fear interview (CFI) is not being performed by asylum officers.
Instead, immigrants are being scheduled to appear before an immigration judge and told by the judge that if they do not have an attorney at the hearing, they will be deported. The same detention center prohibits detainees from accessing lawyers. This is rapid deportation without due process.
In 2020, CoreCivic, the private owner of Torrance Detention Center, reopening raised revenues by millions for the company, but the 2021 inspection found severe understaffing, unsanitary food and other problems. Miscarriages of justice at these facilities, in addition to these failures, demonstrate why they should not exist.
Immigrants should not be held in immigration detention because it is unjust, unfair, and unnecessary.
In a letter dated October 29, 2021, the American Immigration Council, the ACLU, and 88 legal service provider organizations illuminated these issues to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The letter detailed that ICE detention facilities have systematically restricted the most basic modes of communication that detained people require to connect with their lawyers and the outside world, including phones, mail and email access.
Most detained immigrants are unable to obtain lawyers since ICE facilities make it difficult to even get in touch with them. In addition to the lack of access granted by the facility to lawyers, Torrance, NM, is geographically isolated. Like hundreds of jails, private prisons and other prisons are used by ICE to detain immigrants. These locations generally have no or few immigration lawyers.
In immigration proceedings, immigrants in detention have the right to be represented by lawyers under the Constitution of the United States. However, they must pay for their counsel or find free counsel, unlike people in criminal custody, who have the right to government-appointed counsel. According to the studies by the American Immigration Council, detained people with counsel are 10 times more likely to win their immigration cases than those without representation.
In the Torrance Detention Center, they are both denied representation and required to have it at an initial hearing. Depriving the detainee of his right to represent himself constitutes a violation of Due Process afforded by the Sixth Amendment. Detainees often find themselves in the position of representing themselves in immigration court, known as appearing pro se.
According to federal regulations, the immigration judge has certain responsibilities in this situation to protect the rights of the self-represented.
In an effort to deport immigrants as fast as possible, protecting the rights of these detainees is not always happening at the Torrance Detention Center.
