Class Action Suit Challenges Locking Up Immigrants Too Poor to Pay Bond

By Michael Tan

In the federal criminal bail system, judges are required to consider someone’s financial ability to pay a bond and determine if alternative conditions of supervision — check-ins, travel restrictions — are enough to get the person to show up for court.

But such protections don’t apply to immigrants locked up in detention centers. The result is that people like Cesar Matias, a gay man from Honduras, end up jailed simply because they’re poor.
Matias fled to the United States more than a decade ago to escape the persecution he suffered because of his sexuality. He worked as a hair stylist and in a clothing factory in Los Angeles, renting a small, one-bedroom apartment.

He never made enough money to save any because he had to spend all his earnings on rent, groceries, clothing and other necessities.

Immigration authorities arrested Matias in March, 2012, and locked him up in the City Jail in Santa Ana, California while his application for asylum under the United Nations Convention against Torture was being decided.

Eight months later an immigration judge found that he posed no threat to the community and no significant flight risk and ordered him released on a $3,000 bond.

Yet nearly four years later, Matias is still locked up simply because he can’t afford to make bail.

Today, the ACLU filed a class action suit in Los Angeles to end the federal government’s detention of immigrants like Cesar simply because they’re too poor to pay their bond. At least about 100 immigrants — and likely many more — are detained in the Los Angeles area on bonds they can’t afford, even though a judge has found they don’t need to be locked up.

Imprisoning people because they’re poor — whether citizens or immigrants — violates our fundamental commitments to due process and equal protection. Indeed, the Department of Justice has argued that locking up criminal defendants “because of their inability to pay for their release” is unconstitutional.

A growing consensus of federal courts has come to the same conclusion. Yet, the federal government engages in this very practice when it comes to immigrant detainees.

Not only is this practice unfair and discriminatory — it also makes no sense. There’s no reason to keep people like Cesar locked up —at a rate of $159 a day —just because they  don’t have bond money. And it really defies reason to continue to jail them when judges have already said that they can be released.

Indeed, there are compelling arguments that we should not rely on money bond at all to guarantee a person shows up in court since doing so discriminates against the poor without making our communities any safer. But where we use bond, we at least need to have basic protections in place to make sure that people aren’t locked up solely because of their poverty.

Michael Tan is attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project.

When Tom Swann and Guillermo Hernandez got engaged in December of last year, they never expected that their wedding would take place in a federal immigration detention center.

But on March 14, 2016, the two were wed at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, California, in what became the first wedding of a same-sex couple in immigration detention history.

The history-making wedding – which both men hoped would take place under far different circumstances in a far nicer setting – was the result of misguided policy by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that allows immigration agents to roam courthouses and detain immigrants, regardless of whether individuals are applying for a marriage certificate or appearing in court.

Guillermo, who was arrested for underage trespassing at a casino when he was 20, and had some misdemeanor drug charges on his record, returned to the casino when he turned 21, violating a five-year-ban on entering the casino’s premises, and violating his probation. In January, he appeared for a hearing at the Riverside County Courthouse in Indio.

At his hearing, prosecutors had agreed to offer him a one-year residential drug treatment program instead of jail. As he entered the courthouse, however, Guillermo was detained by ICE and taken into custody.

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Read more about Tom and Guillermo's wedding day. Video footage courtesy of The Desert Sun

Guillermo, who has lived in the United States since he was seven years old, applied for and was granted protection under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a special program that shields some young immigrants from deportation. But after his brushes with the law, he was denied renewal of his special status.

Now, Guillermo, who was able to secure legal help from Centro Legal de la Raza, is awaiting the outcome of his case. At the ACLU of Southern California, we believe that Guillermo should never have been detained by ICE because the federal agency has repeatedly said it focuses enforcement efforts on immigrants who may pose a threat to public safety. Clearly, Guillermo is not a threat to his community.

Moreover, once detained he should have been eligible for release on bond for that very same reason.

Yet Guillermo remains locked up in an immigration jail because federal immigration officials failed to follow their own rules. And Tom – a Navy veteran, who is blind and suffers from AIDS – has been left without the much-needed support and companionship of his husband.

ACLU SoCal is working to help Guillermo obtain bond and is seeking public support via a petition asking for his release.

This is not the first time the ACLU has raised serious concerns about ICE’s practice of trolling for detainees at courthouses.

In 2013, we sent a letter to ICE asking the agency stop conducting enforcement actions outside courthouses in Kern County and throughout California because such practices actually undermine public safety by discouraging immigrants from testifying in court, or even reporting crimes fearing that any contact with the legal system may result in deportation proceedings.

ICE responded in a letter and promised to stop such enforcement tactics around the Kern County Superior Court.

Then in March 2014, after increased pressure to stop the practice altogether, ICE told the Los Angeles Times that the agency “routinely evaluates its operational procedures to ensure its resources are being used effectively and efficiently, “ and had recently provided updated guidance related to enforcement actions at or in close proximity to courthouses but refused to disclose any details.

Unfortunately, it seems that two years later, little has changed in ICE’s approach to  enforcement actions around courthouses and immigrants such as Guillermo are still being targeted simply because they complied with their legal obligations and went to court.

ICE should keep its word and follow its own guidelines. But, until ICE reforms the way it operates, people like Guillermo will continue to be picked up, funneled into deportation and separated from their loved ones.

Luis Nolasco is community engagement and policy advocate at the ACLU of Southern California. Follow Luis on Twitter.

Take Action: Urge ICE to #FreeGuillermo and reunite him with husband

By Jeremiah Tramble

In 2014, I transferred from Venice High to Central High in Mar Vista Gardens. At the time, I thought I had finally found a school where I felt safe, valued and supported. For the first time, I had a teacher who motivated me to get the most out of my education.

But that changed five months into my senior year when I was abruptly pulled out of class and searched for weapons and contraband even though I had not done anything wrong.

The day started off like any other. I arrived at school and started working on my U.S. government and economics homework. Something, however, felt odd. I noticed the principal was in my classroom observing students, and it was clear that she was watching me closely. After a few minutes, the principal looked at our class roster and selected a “random” selection of student names, beginning with me.

We were told to grab our personal belongings and follow the principal and another administrator to a separate room.

Once in the room, the principal told us that if we have any contraband, we “might as well give it up now,” and then started to search through our bags. The other administrator told me to take off my sweater and waved the metal detector over my body. When the wand didn’t detect anything, he told me to take off my shoes so he could search them again with the wand. They didn’t find anything on me or any of my classmates.

The incident left me feeling hurt, confused and discriminated against. As the only African-American student in the class, I felt as if school officials targeted me because I was different. It was even worse because I came to this school because it was safe and because I wanted to stop being treated like a suspect all the time. I didn’t understand why they needed to search us, when we’ve never had a crime or weapon on campus.

The administrators said they would keep coming back to search us because it was the Los Angeles Unified School District’s policy.

Before I was searched, I was doing well in school and was on track to graduate. But after the incident I was deeply shaken. Despite having followed the rules and worked hard to do well, I found myself subject to searches and treated like a criminal at school. I felt discouraged, dehumanized, and not valued.

After that incident, I grew angry and my desire to learn decreased. I found that I couldn’t concentrate because I was extremely uncomfortable, knowing I could be searched at any moment.  The only way to make it stop was to stay out of school.  I wanted to attend school but I didn’t want to feel like a criminal.

The next day, I decided not to attend Central High.   I was worried that there were plans to conduct another search that day. Out of respect for my teacher who goes by the name Vitaly, I didn’t want to attend class filled with anger, fear and anxiety. The experience kept me out of school for a month. Luckily, my mom and Vitaly stepped in and encourage me to return to school. I came back during the last two weeks to complete the two classes I needed to graduate.

Looking back now, I wish I had known that the administrators weren’t allowed to ask me to take off my clothes. I wish I had known that the administration can’t target students for searches based on their race. I wish I had known that students have constitutional rights, even in school, and that searches like the one I went through violate those rights.

But at least I know my rights now and can assert them when I feel they are being violated. Fortunately, my teacher, Vitaly held a “Know Your Rights” training workshop, and now I know how to conduct myself in the future, if there is another search.

I am a student, not a suspect.

Jeremiah Tramble is a graduate of Central High in Los Angeles.