FEDERAL JUDGE ISSUES INJUNCTION ON ASYLUM SEEKERS
A Federal Distrcit court judge says the US government has to stop blanket, long term detention of immigrant asylum seekers and review their cases within 7 days of their detention and adhere to it’s own 2009 policy.
The policy itself says the government must give asylum seekers a a parole hearing within 7 days before deciding their release.
A Federal court judge in D.C. says ICE is not doing that and must stop holding all asylum seekers for an extended period of time, without a parole hearing.
According to the court order, ICE went from paroling more than 90 per cent of asylum seekers to blankert, long term detention under President Trump’s Zero Tolerance policy.
“To almost not even looking at those paroled requests and then denying all of them.” said immigration attorney, Daniel Claudio.
U.S. District Judge, James E. Boasberg says asylum seekers are being held for months, sometimes years, before their parole case is even heard.
Boasberg granted a preliminary injunction stoping the government from carrying out blanket detentions at five US field offices, one os those right here in El Paso.
The order is based on a lawsuit by nine asylum seekers from various countries, along with the ACLU.
In the court order, Boasberg wrote,
“This opinion does no more than hold the government accountable to it’s own policy, which recently has been honored more in the breach than the observance.”
“The federal court has issued an injunction sayin that they must follw the directive and review each case by case on whether or not they’ve decided, rather than just saying flat out no.” added Caudillo.
Plaintiffs in the case say close to 1,000 asylum seekers are being held in those five major offices in the U.S.
What’s not clear is if ICE will stop the blanket and long term detention of asylum seekers following this injunction order.
That’s because the Justice department was quoted as saying asylum detention decisions are the sole discretion of government agencies…and not the courts.
