The government of USA stopped revealing where it is holding thousands of immigrants with final deportation orders, a decision that lawyers and immigrant advocacy organizations consider a serious obstacle to exercising their defense and trying to stop some expulsions.
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Since last September 15, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) began removing detainees from its public tracking system with a final removal order.
According to Department of Homeland Security officials briefed on the new policy, agents also cannot reveal over the phone to family members or lawyers where a person in that category is located.
The modification was not publicly announced and ICE has not explicitly confirmed or denied it.
Thousands of detainees stop appearing in the US system
In practice, this means that a person can be arrested, transported hundreds or even thousands of kilometers between detention centers and stop appearing in the main mechanism that for the last 16 years has allowed family members and lawyers to determine where he is.
ICE agents outside the Delaney Hall detention center during a protest in New Jersey. Photo: EFE
And the moment is particularly sensitive, since it occurs precisely when the government considers that the immigration process has concluded and seeks to carry out the deportation.
Immigration lawyers maintain that The new policy could allow ICE to speed up those removals by reducing the time available to go to court.
“It is deeply worrying because it eliminates rights that immigrants had until today,” says Greg Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), which alerted its members about the change.
The potential magnitude of change is considerable.
Nearly 16,000 people who entered ICE detention centers in July alone had final deportation orders, which represents more than a third of all the detainees registered that month, according to agency data obtained by the Deportation Data Project of the universities of California at Berkeley and UCLA.
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Not all, however, have disappeared from the locator. The new practice does not apply to detainees in some facilities where court decisions force ICE to quickly bring them into the system.
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One of the central elements of the controversy is that having a final deportation order does not necessarily imply that an immigrant has exhausted all legal avenues to remain in the United States.
Some people were ordered after missing a hearing, but can still try to reopen their case. Others are in the appeal process or are trying to prevent their expulsion through appeals to federal courts. There are also those who can claim protection if they face the risk of persecution or torture in the country to which they would be sent.
This is where knowing the exact whereabouts of the detainee can become a determining factor.
The change comes as Donald Trump’s government has substantially increased arrests. Photo: AFP
Lawyers can file habeas corpus petitions in federal courts to challenge the legality of a detention. But those lawsuits typically must be filed in the judicial district where the person is being held.
ICE can also transfer detainees between facilities located in different states and some are transferred several times before being deported.
Therefore, the locator had become an essential tool to find a client, establish communication with them, collect information and determine which court to go to.
Lawyers denounce an obstacle to the defense of migrants
My Khanh Ngo, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Immigrants’ Rights Project, said that eight of his clients detained at the Guantanamo naval base, who are part of a class action lawsuit, They stopped appearing in the system.
For Ngo, the new policy constitutes “a huge impediment to effective representation.”
Atenas Burrola Estrada, deputy program director at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, told Washington Post that at least 17 of his clients also abruptly disappeared from the locator.
Initially he thought it was a technical glitch. He later discovered that all those affected had final deportation orders.
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The problem also affects families, who use the system to identify the center where their relative is located and send them money, personal items or medicine.
ICE did not specifically confirm or deny the locator modification. The agency said immigrants with final orders are being prioritized for deportation. and recalled that detainees have access to telephones.
The Department of Homeland Security further argues that people with final removal orders have already received due process. Such an order generally means that an immigration judge ordered the removal and that the decision was not appealed or that regular appeals have already been resolved.
Lawyers question whether this necessarily closes all judicial doors and warn that, if an immigrant is deported before they can locate and act, reversing that situation later can be much more difficult.
A system created to facilitate the location of detainees in the US.
The decision is also significant due to the history of the locator itself.
The administration of Barack Obama created the system in 2010 as part of a series of reforms following investigations into conditions in detention centers, cases of medical negligence and undisclosed deaths.
On an average day, more than 60,000 people remain in ICE custody. Photo: EFE
Before its creation, finding a person in immigration custody could become a search from center to center. If the detainee was unable to call, family members and lawyers had to contact regional ICE offices and different facilities to determine where he had been sent.
The goal of the system was precisely to correct that problem and allow attorneys, family members, and the public to quickly locate a person in government custody.
Lawyers consulted by American media assure that they do not know of a precedent in which an entire category of detainees has been generally excluded, as is now the case with those who have final deportation orders.
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The change also comes when Donald Trump’s government has substantially increased detentions and seeks to accelerate expulsions.
On an average day, More than 60,000 people remain in ICE custody, approximately double the level recorded during the Joe Biden administration.
SERGIO GÓMEZ MASERI – EL TIEMPO Correspondent – Washington – @sergom68
