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Two lawyers banned from detention center

Attorneys say immigrants’ rights violated

By , Staff WriterUpdated
The South Texas Family Residential Center that houses thousands of women and children who were caught crossing the border illegally seeking asylum in the U.S., in Dilley, Texas, May 14, 2015. Lawmakers, advocates and others say confinement only compounds the suffering of women fleeing predatory gangs or domestic abuse in Central America. (Ilana Panich-Linsman/The New York Times) -- NO SALES; FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY WITH STORY SLUGGED IMMIG DETENTION BY JULIA PRESTON. ALL OTHER USE PROHIBITED.

The South Texas Family Residential Center that houses thousands of women and children who were caught crossing the border illegally seeking asylum in the U.S., in Dilley, Texas, May 14, 2015. Lawmakers, advocates and others say confinement only compounds the suffering of women fleeing predatory gangs or domestic abuse in Central America. (Ilana Panich-Linsman/The New York Times) -- NO SALES; FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY WITH STORY SLUGGED IMMIG DETENTION BY JULIA PRESTON. ALL OTHER USE PROHIBITED.

ILANA PANICH LINSMAN, STR / New York Times

Long-simmering tension between immigration officials and volunteer defense lawyers at the family detention center in Dilley boiled over earlier this month when the government banned two attorneys from entering the facility.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Kim Hunter, an attorney from Minnesota who for the last year has advocated against family detention, and Tennessee lawyer Andrew Free “acted in a manner contrary to the safety, security, and good order of the facility by interfering with the execution of Enforcement and Removal Operations officer functions.”

The bans came as volunteers working in the detention center expressed increasing frustration with what they said was mistreatment of detainees by ICE officials and barriers confronting lawyers representing those held in Dilley and at a similar facility in Karnes County.

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The volunteers have filed lawsuits and held press conferences denouncing what they said is retaliation by ICE against detainees who spoke out, poor medical care provided to children in the facility and limits on holding legal orientation sessions.

About 500 people from around the country have volunteered as part of a pro bono effort to represent Dilley detainees, and some nonlawyers have been kept out of the facility.

ICE has denied that detainees are mistreated at the 2,400-bed Dilley camp, which has classrooms and a medical facility. It opened late last year after the Border Patrol apprehended more than 50,000 immigrants in the Rio Grande Valley, most of them from Central America, traveling in family groups.

A California federal judge last month ruled that the Dilley and Karnes County detention centers violate a settlement that governs the treatment of immigrant children. Before the judge’s ruling, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said any family that passes a credible fear interview, the first step in the asylum process, will be let go.

Both Free and Hunter said ICE violated their clients’ rights during the scramble to release detainees in late July, leading to confrontations with the agency.

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Ankle monitors

Free said he was volunteering in Dilley the week of July 20 when he learned that ICE officials told several detainees they needed to wear ankle monitors even though an immigration judge ordered them released on bond.

Free said he complained to ICE because his client shouldn’t have been given additional conditions of release and officials were using the courtroom area without allowing lawyers there.

The courtroom is the only place “on those 55 acres, on that entire chain-linked surrounded perimeter, where someone has the power to tell DHS, ‘No,’” Free said.

On July 23, he and other defense attorneys had a series of meetings with ICE officials demanding that they stop the gatherings in the courtroom, Free said. That afternoon, an immigration judge called an emergency hearing for one of his clients.

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“That is clearly usurping the immigration judge’s order,” Judge Lourdes Rodriquez de Jongh said after hearing Free describe the meeting in the courtroom. “The judge granted her a $1,500 bond … and at that point she was entitled to post her bond and leave Dilley. What’s going on?”

Jill Swartz, ICE supervisory chief counsel in Miami, initially told the judge that because of a misunderstanding, three women who’d been granted bond were taken to the courtroom to be enrolled in a program called alternatives to detention, or ATD, where officers signed them up for ankle bracelets.

“We all agree that forcing ATD after aliens have been given bonds was a mistake,” Swartz said. “We are two weeks into the process.”

Later in the hearing, Swartz said she had received information that Free’s client was not assigned an ankle monitor and asked for a hearing about it.

“It’s a ‘he said, she said,’” Swartz told the judge. “She said she was at the meeting, we have information that she was not. He’s saying that she was pressured and denied access to counsel, and we said she was not.”

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Rodriquez de Jongh set a hearing for the following day, but that night ICE officials released his client without bond or an ankle monitor, Free said.

The next day, he said, staff at the detention center told Free he couldn’t keep his cellphone in a locker in the lobby and delayed when lawyers could enter the courtroom. Free said he banged on the courtroom door and when he tried to enter, an ICE officer pushed him. Several minutes later, he said, he tapped the officer on her shoulder.

In its letter to Free, ICE described a different version of events.

“You placed your hands on an ERO officer in order to prevent her from walking away from you,” ICE San Antonio Field Office Director Enrique Lucero wrote.

Later that day, Free said, he was kicked out of the detention center. On Aug. 3, he received a letter telling him he wouldn’t be allowed back.

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Releases delayed

The day Free was kicked out of the detention center, Hunter said, she and several other lawyers stayed late, refusing to leave the visitation trailer, until their clients were released.

The following Monday, Hunter said, she stayed late again after ICE took hours to release five clients: Two had been ordered released on their own recognizance because of the California judge’s ruling, two had paid bonds and one who that day had been granted “withholding of removal,” a status similar to asylum.

Hunter said she eventually left the visitation area, then went back inside against the wishes of the detention center staff. In the letter banning her from the Dilley facility, ICE officials said she interfered with a briefing of arriving employees and “became belligerent and demanding regarding the release of (her) clients.”

“This place is a prison with none of the efficiencies you would expect from a prison,” Hunter said. “The rules are always changing. They cannot process anyone quickly or efficiently, it would seem. There’s just no excuse for the foot-dragging and the obstruction in what is a family detention center.”

ICE officials said they stopped using the courtrooms for the meetings about ankle bracelets after lawyers complained. Officials also said ICE has to go through several steps, including confirming detainees’ travel plans, before releasing them.

The agency has taken steps to ensure detainees have access to counsel, including providing a trailer in the detention center where volunteers can work, spokesman Richard Rocha said.

In Dilley, “ICE provides legal representatives accommodations beyond those at other ICE facilities housing adults to allow for maximum interaction with the residents at family residential facilities, and has provided dedicated workspace for pro bono attorneys,” Rocha said.

He said those who violate the standards can be banned. Lawyers’ visitation privileges can later be reinstated.

This isn’t the first time volunteers have had trouble accessing the facility, said Brian Hoffman, the lead attorney at the CARA Pro Bono Project that represents Dilley detainees. Earlier this year, two law clerks were initially refused entrance for security reasons and later allowed in. Also, in July a group of anthropologists and psychologists who were helping the pro bono project were kicked out for conducting an unauthorized survey, Hoffman said.

Attorneys continue to face hurdles, Hoffman said. Some days, they show up to court early and are told they can’t go inside and meet with their clients until the judge is on the bench, forcing them to ask for delays. Other days, detention center officials limit which electronic devices attorneys bring into the court.

During Rodriquez de Jongh’s hearing about the ankle monitors, Swartz, the ICE supervisor, addressed the removal of volunteers and hinted at the tensions between ICE and the pro bono attorneys.

“There are no secrets, no surprises here,” Swartz said. “We are trying to act with total transparency on behalf of the department. There is no greater conspiracy, your honor. … Here are some issues in terms of individuals that were passed off as legal assistants who are not in fact legal assistants, and yes their access is limited.”

jbuch@express-news.net

Twitter: @jlbuch

|Updated

Jason Buch is a freelance journalist based in Texas.