Immigrants detained in New Mexico sue over legal representation

A group of mothers and children from Central America who are held at a detention center in New Mexico filed a lawsuit on Friday against the Department of Homeland Security, claiming they aren’t getting proper legal representation.

A coalition of immigrant rights groups — including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Immigration Council and the National Immigration Law Center — filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. They filed it on the behalf of several women and children from El Salvador and Honduras who are detained at the Artesia Family Residential Center located in the isolated town of Artesia in New Mexico.

“These mothers and their children have sought refuge in the United States after fleeing for their lives from threats of death and violence in their home countries,” Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement. “U.S. law guarantees them a fair opportunity to seek asylum. Yet, the government’s policy violates that basic law and core American values.”

The plaintiffs include a mother who fled Honduras with her two children to seek asylum in the U.S. after she received repeated death threats. It also includes a mother who fled El Salvador with her 10-month-old son after rival gangs threatened to kill her and her baby.

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The plaintiffs’ attorneys say the women and children detained in the Artesia facility have a right to seek asylum and a fair hearing to present their claims. However, they say that the facility has turned into a “deportation mill” because women and children detained there are being placed in expedited removal proceedings that prevents them from having any real chance to present their claims for asylum.

As a result, only about 37.8 percent of the detainees held at the Artesia facility are approved as having a credible fear of returning to their home country and are, therefore, granted the chance at an asylum hearing. That’s compared to the national average of 77 percent.

The lawsuit is asking the federal government to refrain from continuing its policies to expedite the removal of those detained at the Artesia detention facility. It also asks that the plaintiffs be provided a “meaningful opportunity to apply for asylum.” In addition, it calls on immigration officials to allow women and children who’ve already been deported from the Artesia facility to come back so they can seek “new proceedings that comply with the law.”

Karen Tumlin, managing attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, said in a statement that any mother would “do whatever it takes to make sure her children are safe from harm’s way.”

“Our plaintiffs are no different,” she said. “They have fled their homes to protect their children, only to find that the U.S. deportation system is intent upon placing them back in the dangerous situations they left. We are filing this lawsuit today to ensure that each mother is able to have her fair day in court, and that we are not sending children and their mothers back to violence or their deaths.”

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