Civil Rights Groups Say Immigrants Are Being Denied Legal Access at Detention Centers
A group of civil rights and legal organizations say immigrant detainees being held at two federal detention centers are being denied their constitutional right to legal counsel. One of those detention centers is a Miami facility flagged by Reason earlier this week for allegations of overcrowding and dysfunction.
In letters to the Trump administration released Thursday, Americans for Immigrant Justice (AIJ), the American Civil Liberties Union, and several other groups urged the administration to immediately restore detainees’ access to legal counsel at Federal Correctional Institution Leavenworth (FCI Leavenworth) and Federal Detention Center-Miami (FDC Miami), two Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities that are holding hundreds of detainees for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
According to the letters, attorneys for AIJ, Florida Legal Services, and the University of Miami Immigration Clinic “have witnessed and documented troubling systemic failures to provide individuals detained in immigration custody with access to vital legal resources and counsel” at FDC Miami.
Those deprivations include regular denial of access to legal documents, legal mail, and attorney calls. The groups say these restrictions violate detainees’ due process rights under the Fifth Amendment and their First Amendment right to free speech.
“Denying detained immigrants access to legal documents, mail, and phone calls makes it all but impossible to fight and win an immigration case,” AIJ Executive Director Sui Chung said in a press relea
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