By Hallie Golden
In what is thought to be the first child-led case contesting the Trump administration’s policy on immigrant arrests at courthouses, a woman and her two young children are battling for their release from an immigration detention facility in Texas.
Related Articles
-
RFK Jr. s made promises about vaccines. Here s what he s done as health secretary
-
Supreme Court upholds Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing pornography online
-
Supreme Court says Maryland parents can pull their kids from public school lessons using LGBTQ books
-
Supreme Court preserves key part of Obamacare coverage requirements
-
Supreme Court OKs fee that subsidizes phone, internet services in schools, libraries and rural areas
The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday, contends that the family’s arrests after they legally entered the United States via a Biden-era appointment app and fled Honduras violated their Fifth Amendment right to due process and their Fourth Amendment right to be free from arbitrary searches and seizures.
According to Columbia Law School professor Elora Mukherjee, one of the attorneys for the family, “the executive branch cannot seize people, arrest people, or detain people indefinitely when they are complying exactly what our government has required of them.”
An email seeking comment was not immediately answered by the Department of Homeland Security.
As part of the White House’s massive deportation operation, the nation has witnessed widespread arrests since May, including the detention of asylum-seekers outside of courtrooms as they attend regular court hearings. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel will often arrest the individual and put them on expedited removal, which is a fast track to deportation, once a judge grants a government attorney’s motion to drop deportation proceedings.
According to Mukherjee, this is the first case challenging the ICE courthouse arrest policy brought on behalf of minors. The deadline for the government’s response is July 1.
Similar cases have been filed elsewhere, including as in New York, where a federal judge decided earlier this month that federal immigration officials are not allowed to conduct civil arrests at state courthouses or detain someone who is visiting for a hearing.
Initials for the children and Ms. Z for the mother were used in the Texas complaint. Because of worries about their safety, their identities have not been made public.
According to Mukherjee, the mother has been witnessing her 6-year-old son’s health deteriorate for weeks inside the Dilley Immigration Processing Center. According to Mukherjee, he recently received chemotherapy for leukemia and missed his check-in doctor’s visit because of his arrest.
He bruises easily. He is experiencing bone ache. Mukherjee said that he appears pale and that he has also lost his appetite. His mother is afraid that these could be signs that his leukemia is becoming worse.
The lawsuit claims that in October 2024, the mother, son, and 9-year-old daughter left Honduras because they were threatened with death. According to Mukherjee, they used the CBP One app to enter the United States, and the Department of Homeland Security granted them parole after determining they posed no threat to the public. They were instructed to show up on May 29 at an immigration court in Los Angeles.
After the app was expanded to include migrants in January 2023, more than 900,000 people had been permitted entry into the US using it until President Donald Trump terminated CBP One for new arrivals on his first day in office.
According to Mukherjee, the mother attempted to inform the judge during the family’s hearing that they wanted to pursue their asylum claims. The judge promptly granted Homeland Security’s motion to have their charges dismissed.
Mukherjee claimed that when they left the courtroom, they discovered guys dressed in civilian clothes who they assumed were ICE officers and who had taken the family into custody. They were only provided with an apple, a small packet of cookies, a juice box, and water throughout their approximately 11-hour stay at an immigrant processing center in Los Angeles.
An officer standing close to the youngster once pulled up his shirt to show his rifle. According to Mukherjee, the youngster peed on himself and was kept in damp clothes until the following morning.
They have been detained at the processing center ever since they were brought there.
She claimed that the family is going through hardships in this immigration detention facility. Every night, the children wail. They are pleading with God to let them leave this prison.
Their attorneys have appealed the immigration judge’s May ruling, but the government claims they are subject to expedited removal, so they might be deported in a matter of days, Mukherjee said.
According to Kate Gibson Kumar, an attorney for the Texas Civil Rights project who is also defending the family, the arrests were unlawful and unwarranted.
The key question in our situation is whether or not these families, who are doing everything correctly, particularly with young children, need some protection. Gibson Kumar stated. Yes, we reply.
This article was written by Nadia Lathan, an Associated Press correspondent in Austin, Texas.
