As ICE Pursues Courthouse Arrests, Immigrant Families Struggle to Find Legal Help

Family members cope with the hardship of having a loved one detained while facing the challenge of finding an attorney to represent the detained person as the clock ticks down on their deportation Gov Kathy Hochul and NYC Comptroller Brad Lander outside the immigration court at Federal Plaza Tuesday where they condemned ICE s tactic of detaining people at mandated court appointments Ayman Siam Office of the NYC Comptroller The woman s husband was scheduled to appear for a routine mandatory check-in at the Federal Plaza courthouse at the end of May She and her daughter who inquired not to be identified because they feared jeopardizing their ongoing immigration cases did not accompany him The woman disclosed her husband who is from Ecuador had his first court hearing for an asylum application The family has been living in the city s shelter system According to his wife just after the judge dismissed his incident the man was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE agents His arrest is one of dozens in latest weeks at Manhattan s three immigration courts part of ICE s tactic to carry out mass deportations under the Trump administration by targeting people showing up for their scheduled immigration hearings function d u ac var s d createElement 'script' s type 'text javascript' s src 'https a omappapi com app js api min js' s async true s dataset user u s dataset campaign ac d getElementsByTagName 'head' appendChild s document 'u kmqsczew vunxutxmd' Now as the woman copes with the hardship of having a loved one detained she also faces the challenge of finding an attorney to represent her husband while the deportation clock ticks down I feel helpless declared the detainee s spouse in Spanish He had his Social Safeguard Number work permit with all his papers in order A man who likes to work and ICE took him away After inauguration the Trump administration broadened the scope of an immigration protocol known as expedited removal enacting a nationwide expansion something he d also attempted during his first term Before this guidelines only applied to people detained within miles of an international margin and to those who had been in the U S for less than two weeks With the expansion those who can t prove they have been in the country for more than two years are subject to expedited deportation Soon after the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU and Make the Road New York MRNY sued the administration over the expansion While the episode remains ongoing in court ICE is moving forward with arrests NBC News communicated that the the Justice Department instructed immigration judges to briskly dismiss cases not allowing immigrants the typical -day response time On Tuesday City Comptroller Brad Lander who is running in the current Democratic primary for mayor was handcuffed and temporarily detained by masked ICE agents as he was escorting a man out of an immigration court hearing at Federal Plaza after the man s event was dismissed That man named Edgardo is now in ICE detention Lander stated reporters after his own release As far as I know he has no lawyer the comptroller revealed according to video shared online by the news site Hell Gate He has been stripped of American due process rights by a regime and a judge that owe him a credible fear hearing before they deport him When immigration judges dismiss deportation cases those people are left without much protection allowing ICE agents to initiate an expedited removal This isn t the same as someone who s on the street and ICE knows nothing about them Paige Austin supervising litigation attorney at Make the Road explained ICE knows all about them They come to their court date and there s an advance notice of who has court so ICE has their photo they have their records they have their documents from the demarcation However the protocol is complicated to understand for the affected families who say that they ve followed the rules since arriving in the country In terms of patterns a large number of of the individuals that we have seen who have been arrested by Department of Homeland Prevention are contributing members of their neighborhood have been showing up to court hearings and complying with their legal obligations and often have no criminal record at all revealed Melissa Chua co-director of the New York Legal Assistance Group s Immigrant Protection Unit ICE agents inside the courthouse at Federal Plaza Tuesday Twitter NYC Citizens Advocate s Office Even before Trump took office this year and ramped up enforcement a large number of immigrants struggled to find or afford legal help and unlike criminal court cases representation isn t guaranteed in immigration court Further complicating that access is the fact that after arrest detainees are often moved to distant states like Texas or Louisiana This is where the woman whose husband was arrested at the end of May was being held after a short stay in Texas when City Limits last heard from her on June The move makes it more laborious for organizations in New York to take his scenario explained the wife who stated she has been going out everyday knocking on the doors of every organization and legal operation suggested to her I ve even talked to private attorneys who tell me they can help me get him out on bail for the man s wife revealed saying she was considering this option but didn t have the means to pay for it When City Limits last spoke to her early in June she was still looking for representation for her husband who she says has until June to appeal his deportation When sought City Hall did not respond to questions about what guidance or assistance the city is providing to family members of people detained after immigration hearings A spokesperson for the mayor referred to an amicus brief filed by the city in the event Dylan Lopez Contreras a high school attendee arrested in a Manhattan courthouse after attending an immigration hearing The tactics employed in Dylan s occurrence using his appearance at court for a routine immigration hearing as an opportunity to detain him threatens to deter people from accessing the court system on which local governance depends the city s head lawyer Muriel Goode-Trufant wrote in the filing In latest months the city has been winding down a large number of of the services it had previously offered to displaced persons in its care citing declining numbers of new arrivals though around remained in the shelter system as of last month In May the mayor s office broadcasted the closure of the Asylum Application Help Center a destination for expatriates to file immigration paperwork and get assistance with their cases It s slated to shutter at the end of the month The administration also restructured a de Blasio-era venture formerly known as ActionNYC that funds immigration legal help phasing out an aspect of the initiative which provided services in city institutions like hospitals schools and libraries The demand for these materials exceeds the materials available and that was true before the city publicized it was closing these help centers explained Rosa Santana co-executive director of the Envision Freedom Fund an organization that has helped pay bonds of people to get out of detention centers when that option is available However for most of detained immigrants and their families bond amounts are impossible to afford Santana explained adding that last year the median bond in New York State was double the national median American Red Cross Headquarters at West th St in Manhattan where the city has been running its Asylum Application Help Center It s slated to close by the end of this month Photo by Adi Talwar The City Council is at this moment pushing for million in the upcoming fiscal year budget for immigration legal services programs up from last year s allocation of million advocates say That would include million for the Immigrant Opportunity Initiative which helps low-income immigrant New Yorkers apply for things like citizenship and permanent residency as well as million for the Rapid Response scheme which aids people facing detention or deportation At the state level Gov Kathy Hochul s office announced the majority newest budget deal passed in May included million for immigration legal services On Wednesday at least one advocacy group Vera Institute of Justice called for the legislature which just wrapped up its work for this week to reconvene for a special session to increase those funds This immigration dragnet is an affront to due process that has ensnared thousands of people who are working supporting their families and long-time members of their communities Shayna Kessler director of the organization s Advancing Universal Representation initiative mentioned in a report We are alarmed by this escalation Immigration advocates in New York say that they started receiving calls about courthouse arrests and detentions after a heated meeting on May where Stephen Miller the White House deputy chief of staff and Kristi Noem the secretary of the Department of Homeland Assurance DHS urged ICE agents to arrest people per day Days later internal documents obtained by the Washington Post displayed the federal cabinet was instructing ICE to arrest people at courthouses For those with upcoming immigration court hearings the attorneys consulted for this story reported they could not give specific recommendations as it depends on the specifics of an individual s incident People represented by an attorney can request an appearance virtually suggested Chu adding that parents worried about arrests can name a standby guardian to take care of their children should they be detained Austin added that people in detention can request a credible fear interview a screening process to determine whether someone has a valid fear of persecution or torture if returned to their home country Earlier this month she declared MRNY was working on cases involving people who were arrested following an immigration hearing in Manhattan were still detained at the time while certain had already been deported You can only imagine that that s presumably a small fraction Austin declared We re getting at this point inundated with phone calls from people with future hearing dates who are very scared To reach the reporter behind this story contact Daniel citylimits org To reach the editor contact Jeanmarie citylimits org Want to republish this story Find City Limits reprint framework here The post As ICE Pursues Courthouse Arrests Immigrant Families Struggle to Find Legal Help appeared first on City Limits