The ACLU of Maine has joined a class action lawsuit alleging that federal immigration officials are violating the constitutional rights of many individuals caught up in the nationwide crackdown on non-citizens.
The lawsuit focuses on whether non-citizens who are detained far from the border are entitled to bond hearings before an immigration judge. That was the practice for nearly 30 years, according to the national ACLU and their state affiliates in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire.
But the class action lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts accuses the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security of illegally reversing that precedent by denying detainees the ability to seek release on bond while their immigration cases play out. The groups contend that the agencies are "systemically misclassifying people arrested inside the United States" by treating them the same as individuals who are stopped at the border or at ports of entry — a group who can be held without bond hearings under current law.
"This statute has never been applied to people arrested in the interior of the United States and placed in removal proceedings, and this practice blatantly goes against its plain language,” Max Brooks, an immigration attorney for ACLU of Maine, said in a statement. “However, CBP and ICE have begun indefinitely jailing people who are undergoing civil immigration proceedings that can take months or years. This is a clear violation of the due process rights of immigrants as outlined by federal law."
The lawsuit is just the latest legal challenge of the Trump administration's detention and mass deportation campaign against non-citizens, including many who have been living and working in the U.S. for years and who have no criminal records. Multiple other lawsuits have been filed across the country against the current practice of holding immigrants in detention facilities while their cases work through the immigration courts.
Earlier this month, the Board of Immigration Appeals within the DOJ issued a decision allowing immigration judges to deny detainees access to a bond hearing even if they were stopped far from the border. In its decision, the board noted that judges cannot hold bond hearings for non-citizens who are detained after presenting themselves at the border or at a port of entry.
The board added that interpreting the Immigration and Nationality Act otherwise "would require reading the (law) to conclude that Congress intended that aliens unlawfully entering the United States without inspection, particularly those who successfully evaded apprehension for more than 2 years, be rewarded with the opportunity for a bond hearing before an Immigration Judge, whereas aliens who present themselves to officers at a port of entry are ineligible for a bond hearing.
Last week, a federal judge in Maine ruled that Customs and Border Patrol agents likely violated a man's due process rights by denying him a bond hearing after he was arrested near Waterville. The judge then prohibited the federal government from transferring the man to a distant detention facility.
The class action lawsuit filed this week could affect immigrants who have been detained under similar circumstances in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island. In addition to the ACLU and state affiliates, the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and two law firms, Foley Haug and Araujo and Fisher, have joined the lawsuit.
