美国国家公共电台 NPR Federal Judge Orders Administration To End Arbitrary Detention Of Asylum-Seekers

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NOEL KING, HOST:

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ruled that the Trump¹ administration cannot arbitrarily detain people seeking asylum². That ruling challenges the administration's practice of detaining people who are seeking asylum. NPR's Richard Gonzales has the story.

RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE³: The lead plaintiff in this class action lawsuit⁴ is a teacher from Haiti, Ansley Damus. He has been detained in Ohio for more than a year and a half. In 2016, he fled Haiti fearing violence and political persecution⁵ and asked for asylum in the United States. An immigration judge granted him asylum - not just once but twice. But Damus remains⁶ locked up as the government appeals those decisions. On Monday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled that the Trump administration is violating its own procedures by not granting Damus' release. Cecillia Wang is deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that are a part of the lawsuit.

CECILLIA WANG: The ruling in the Damus case stands for the principle that the government cannot apply a blanket policy of detaining asylum-seekers for the purpose of deterring⁷ people from coming into the United States to seek asylum.

GONZALES: Typically, asylum-seekers must pass a credible⁸ fear interview to convince authorities that they face a threat of persecution at home. If immigration officials approve that, people are usually eligible⁹ to be released from detention¹⁰ while they're waiting to be granted asylum. But according to the ACLU lawsuit, under the Trump administration, that's not the case. In several ICE field offices - Detroit, El Paso, Los Angeles, Newark and Philadelphia - virtually no asylum-seekers were released after they proved they had a credible fear of persecution - Cecillia Wang.

WANG: We had a clear record, as the court noted¹¹, showing that in these five ICE field offices there was really a very clear pattern that what previously¹² had resulted in release of asylum-seekers at a rate of about 90 percent, based on individualized consideration, really dwindled¹³ down to near zero.

GONZALES: As a result, Judge Boasberg ordered the government to conduct case-by-case reviews of more than 1,000 other asylum-seekers in those five ICE field officers who have been denied release. A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment.

Richard Gonzales, NPR News.

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