ICE Abuse of
Voluntary Departure may effect thousands.
LOS ANGELES — Nine Mexican immigrants who
agreed to be deported from the United States during the last five years will be
allowed to return to fight their expulsions under an agreement announced
Wednesday that could also include other Mexicans who consented to leave.
In a lawsuit against the federal government
brought last year, the American Civil Liberties Union argued that
enforcement agents had coerced the nine into accepting a type of removal known
as voluntary return by failing to advise them of their rights or warn them of
the consequences. After deportation, most immigrants living here without papers
cannot legally come back for at least three years and often as long as a
decade.
The immigrants contended they had strong cases
for staying and would have made them in court if they had known they had that
option. They said agents gave them “gross misinformation” about their choices
and pressured them to sign removal papers, resulting in departures that were
anything but voluntary.
In the agreement, federal officials did not
admit any wrongdoing but agreed to alter the practices of border and
enforcement agents to have them inform immigrants more thoroughly about their
rights and about the obstacles to returning if they leave.
The authorities “use voluntary return as an
option for individuals who may request to be returned home in lieu of removal
proceedings, but in no case is coercion or deception tolerated,” said Virginia
Kice, a spokeswoman in California for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in a
statement on Wednesday.
Although the case involved only nine
immigrants deported from San Diego and Los Angeles, it could apply to many more
if a judge approves a section of the agreement that would extend it to all
Mexicans who left from Southern California by voluntary departure after June
2009 and who would have had viable claims in immigration courts.
The two sides gave different estimates of how
many people would be affected. The A.C.L.U. said “potentially hundreds or
thousands” of deportees might qualify. An immigration official said that about
30,000 foreigners left in voluntary departures during the time period, but that
only “a very small fraction” would qualify to return.
The federal judge who will decide, John A.
Kronstadt of the Central District of California, is not expected to rule until
next year. As part of the already agreed changes, immigration and border
agencies will set up a telephone hotline with information for people
considering voluntary departure and will provide lists of lawyers and times to
consult them as well as better access for lawyers to meet with those who are
detained.
“This is a substantial reform of how Border
Patrol and ICE do business,” said Sean Riordan, senior staff attorney for the
civil liberties union in San Diego, using the acronym for the enforcement
agency. The agreement allows the A.C.L.U. to monitor the agencies’ compliance
for three years.
Lawyers for the group said the settlement was
a rare instance when significant numbers of people who have been deported can
come back. They will not be given any new legal status, but will be able to
take up their cases where they stood before deportation. A law firm, Cooley LLP
in San Diego, also worked on the case.
Mr. Riordan said the immigrants in the suit
were living without legal status in Southern California and were detained when
they were going about daily routines such as driving to work or waiting at a
bus stop.
One plaintiff, Gerardo Hernández Contreras,
went out in San Diego to pick up ice cream for his young children, who are both
American citizens, when he was stopped by local police officers. According to
court documents, he was turned over to the Border Patrol and signed a voluntary
departure after agents told him his wife, also an American citizen, would be
able to obtain a visa for him to return. He has been living in Tijuana since
2012.
Another plaintiff, Isidora López Venegas, was
stopped on the street in San Diego three years ago and signed a voluntary
departure to avoid being detained and separated from a young son who is
autistic. Ms. Venegas said her son was not receiving adequate care where she
now lives in Mexico.
The nine Mexicans in the suit will be allowed
to come back within 30 days.
Angelica Salas, the executive director of the Coalition for Humane
Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, which was a plaintiff, said the
agreement would work immediately to discourage agents from pressuring people to
depart. “The cowardly practice of coercing immigrants to sign a so-called
voluntary departure notice has come to an end,” she said.
Jennifer Medina reported from Los Angeles, and Julia Preston
from New York
NY Times. August 28, 2014.
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