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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wed., November 12, 2008
MEDIA CONTACTS
Stanford Immigrants' Rights Clinic: Jayashri Srikantiah, 650-724-2442
National Immigration Law Center: Linton Joaquin, 213-674-2909
ACLU of Southern California: Gordon Smith, 213-977-5247
National Lawyers Guild-SF: Carlos Villarreal, 415-377-6961 |
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SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Today a coalition of immigrants'
rights organizations asked a federal judge to compel the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) to disclose information about a program under
which it removes non-U.S. citizens from the United States without
hearings before immigration judges. The program, called "stipulated
removal," has resulted in the removal of over 96,000 noncitizens since
its inception.
The Stanford Immigrants' Rights Clinic, together with the National
Immigration Law Center (NILC), the ACLU of Southern California (ACLUSC)
and the National Lawyers Guild of San Francisco (NLGSF), filed the
lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of
California under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to gain access to
agency records about stipulated removal from DHS and its subagencies,
including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The
lawsuit also seeks access to records from the U.S. Department of Justice
(DOJ) and its Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
Stipulated removal allows DOJ and DHS to remove a noncitizen, even one
with valid defenses against deportation, as long as the noncitizen signs
an order. DHS appears to target for stipulated removal noncitizens who
are in immigration detention, and does not allow the noncitizen to
appear before a judge prior to being deported. Advocates have expressed
concerns that immigrants signing these orders do not realize they are
giving up their rights to challenge their deportation.
In the lawsuit, NLGSF et al. v. U.S. DHS, the plaintiffs note
that news reports, congressional testimony, and agency press releases
reveal that the DHS and DOJ have broadly implemented stipulated removal
on a nationwide basis for at least 12 years. However, DHS and DOJ have
failed to produce records that reflect the full scope of stipulated
removal's implementation, and the select information DHS and DOJ have
divulged to date provides a "strong indication that other documents have
been improperly withheld."
"DHS is running a federal program that has resulted in the deportation
of almost 100,000 people without legal hearings, and yet the public
knows very little about the program," said Jayashri Srikantiah, director
of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Stanford Law School.
"Stipulated removal raises serious due process concerns because
immigrant detainees may not know that they are signing away their
rights, and no judge ever speaks to the detainee to ensure that they
understand the process."
The lawsuit comes after two FOIA requests in December 2005 and February
2008 yielded only minimal information. According to data that was
released under those FOIA requests by the DOJ's Executive Office for
Immigration Review, that office entered 96,241 stipulated removal orders
between October 1999 and June 2008.
Karen Tumlin, staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center,
observes: "DHS has revealed close to nothing about a program that
impacts thousands of immigrants' due process rights. The stipulated
removal program gives detained immigrants an impossible choice: sign
away your rights or stay in detention."
"Immigrant detainees may be refugees or have U.S. citizen family
members," said Ahilan Arulanantham, an ACLU of Southern California staff
attorney. "The public should know whether DHS is pressuring these
detainees to give up their right to a hearing."
"Stipulated removal appears to target the most vulnerable parts of the
immigrant population," observed Carlos Villarreal, Executive Director of
the National Lawyers Guild - San Francisco Bay Area. "Immigrant
detainees often lack the money to pay for lawyers and bond money to get
out of detention."
Jennifer Lee Koh, Cooley Godward Kronish Fellow with Stanford
Immigrants' Rights Clinic, said: "Before DHS further expands its
implementation of stipulated removal, the public should know whether the
program satisfies basic due process requirements. Immigrant detainees
should know exactly what they are giving up when they sign a stipulated
order."
Students in the Stanford Immigrants' Rights Clinic participated in
drafting the FOIA requests and the complaint filed today.
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