A federal appellate court in California today ruled that a lawsuit filed on behalf of immigrants who have been detained for more than six months without receiving bond hearings can go forward as a class action. The immigrants are represented by the ACLU of Southern California, the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, the Stanford Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and the law firm of Sidley Austin LLP.
"This is a huge victory for immigrants who have been held in prolonged, indefinite detention without the most basic element of due process - a hearing to determine if their detention is justified,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, director of immigrants’ rights and national security for the ACLU Southern California, who argued the case before the Ninth Circuit. “There have been many good decisions invalidating prolonged immigration detention in individual instances, but the government has not been following them in other cases. Because the court has allowed the case to go forward as a class action, many detainees – the overwhelming majority of whom lack legal representation – will be able to benefit from the court's final decision.”
The lawsuit, Rodriguez et al. v. Hayes et al., was originally filed in a federal district court in Los Angeles in May 2007 on behalf of Alejandro Rodriguez, an immigrant from Mexico who was detained more than three years pending completion of his removal proceedings, without ever receiving a bond hearing. In the lawsuit, Rodriquez asked for a hearing to determine if his prolonged detention was justified and to represent other similarly situated immigrants in the Central District of California. A district court in California ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to grant a class action. The ACLU appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in April, 2008.
The Ninth Circuit, disagreeing with the government’s claims, found that it had clear jurisdiction to allow the lawsuit to go forward as a class action and that a class action would provide a remedy for immigration detainees who are unrepresented. The court explained that without class certification, “many of the putative class members likely would not be able to adjudicate their claimed need of a bond hearing,” and that class treatment was “likely necessary to provide the remedy sought.”
On an average day, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security detains roughly 33,400 non-citizens in federal detention facilities and local jails across the country, resulting in more than a threefold increase in the detention population since just a decade ago. In the Central District of California alone, hundreds of detainees each year are subjected to prolonged immigration detention while they fight their immigration cases.
"Many individuals in immigration detention pose no danger or flight risk that requires them to be locked up," said Judy Rabinovitz, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. "Yet they are deprived of their liberty, often for prolonged periods of time, without even a bond hearing to determine if such detention is justified. This violates due process, results in many individuals forfeiting meritorious claims, causes families financial and emotional hardship and is a huge drain on taxpayers' money."
“We’re hopeful that the Obama administration will now agree that people incarcerated for years should receive the basic due process protection of a hearing,” Rabinovitz added.
Over the past few years, the ACLU has filed multiple lawsuits on behalf of individual immigrants who have been held for prolonged periods of time while fighting their immigration cases, winning the release of more than a dozen individuals who were being unlawfully detained.
Lawyers on the case include Arulanantham and Peter Eliasberg of the ACLU of Southern California, Rabinovitz and Cecillia D. Wang of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, Jayashri Srikantiah of the Stanford Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic, and Steven A. Ellis, William Tran and Brian K. Washington of Sidley Austin LLP.
Image: Alejandro Rodriguez

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has demanded that the Lancaster City Council immediately cease the unconstitutional and divisive practice of opening its meetings, as well as other government meetings in the city, with Christian prayers.
In a letter sent today to Mayor R. Rex Parris and all members of the City Council, the ACLU/SC urged the city to end the use of sectarian prayers that show favoritism to a single religion in public meetings, or face possible legal action. The demand letter was sent after the ACLU/SC received complaints from residents attending the meetings.
“The City Council is clearly showing bias toward one religion by leading council and planning meetings with Christian prayers,” said Peter Eliasberg, Manheim Family Attorney for First Amendment Rights at the ACLU/SC. “Public officials are not only alienating a large swath of the non-Christian constituents they represent, but they are also clearly violating one of the most basic principles of the Constitution – that government must not favor one religion over others.”
City officials regularly open public meetings with prayers in the name of Jesus, demonstrating favoritism toward Christianity.
The letter written by Eliasberg cites numerous cases in which the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts that have ruled that the practice of opening meetings with sectarian prayers is unconstitutional. In 2002, the California Court of Appeal upheld a Superior Court ruling that concluded that a prayer given by the city of Burbank “in the name of Jesus Christ” violated the First Amendment. The court ordered the city to cease opening its meetings with sectarian prayers, and to inform anyone conducting a prayer that sectarian prayers are prohibited.
The city has until August 14 to respond to the letter.

NEW YORK – Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials today announced intentions to improve the nation's immigration detention system, including ending family detention at the T. Don Hutto family detention center in Taylor, TX.

The government's announcement, however, failed to address a number of critical holes in the current system, including a lack of enforceable basic conditions standards, due process to ensure people are not unnecessarily detained, especially for prolonged periods of time, and alternatives to detention.

“Though this is a good first step, serious problems with the detention system persist. Unless the federal government creates enforceable regulations, and ceases to detain people who present neither a danger nor flight risk, there will remain an unchecked, shadow incarceration system inviting abuse,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, director of immigrants’ rights and national security for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

The ACLU has called for the overhaul of the massive immigration detention system, which has produced over 90 detainee deaths since 2003. DHS locks up in prisons and jails about 32,000 civil immigration detainees each day who are pursuing their immigration cases in the courts. Across the country, treatment of immigration detainees has been poor and inhumane, with many being denied critical medical care. Since DHS has not acted, Congress must now pass the "Safe Treatment, Avoiding Needless Deaths, and Abuse Reduction in the Detention System Act," which would aim to prevent deaths of immigration detainees by requiring DHS to issue detention regulations that are legally binding and enforceable.

According to today's announcement, plans are in the works to consolidate many detainees in facilities with conditions that reflect their status as non-criminals, establish more centralized authority over the system and create more direct oversight of detention centers. The government will also stop sending families to Hutto, a former state prison that was the focus of ACLU lawsuits filed in 2007 on behalf of 26 immigrant children and which charged that the children were being illegally imprisoned in inhumane conditions while their parents awaited immigration decisions.

A settlement agreement which required Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to make a number of significant improvements to the conditions inside the facility and subjected ICE to external oversight is set to expire on August 29. ACLU attorneys are in discussions with government lawyers to extend the agreement until the last family has been released from Hutto, which is expected to be no later than the end of the year.

"Ending family detention at Hutto is extremely welcome and long overdue, and the American Civil Liberties Union looks forward to working with DHS to revamp the broken immigration detention system," said Joanne Lin, Legislative Counsel with the ACLU. "However, in order to effectuate meaningful reform of the immigration detention system, DHS must issue legally binding and enforceable detention standards, which DHS has refused to do for years, and must provide basic due process to ensure that individuals – including U.S. citizens – are not being inappropriately locked up, often for prolonged periods of time."