Thread: Bond hearings underway for those arrested in ICE raid last month

Bond hearings underway for those arrested in ICE raid last month

• ALYSSA OURSLER | BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

• May 4, 2018 Updated 14 hrs ago

For the past month, Carolina has been a single mother.

The woman, who asked that her last name not be used, has a 10-month-old and an 11-year-old. She is 25 and doesn’t drive.

Her husband of three years, who usually transports the family, and brother-in-law were among those arrested by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement at a meatpacking plant near Morristown, Tennessee a month ago today.

They worked at the plant for four and eight years, respectively. According to the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, the workplace raid was the largest in a decade.


By the Numbers

» On April 5, 97 people were arrested at Southeastern Provision, a meatpacking plant in Bean Station, Tennessee.
» That day, 32 people were released, but still face deportation proceedings.
» One person is in state custody, while 10 people, who have all pleaded not guilty to criminal charges, are in federal custody.
» According to a public defender involved in the case, those facing federal charges are being held in Washington County and Carter County.
» Another 54 of those arrested were sent to Louisiana and put in immigration detention.
» As of early Friday afternoon, more than 10 had been granted bond and at least one person denied bond.

More than half of those arrested were placed in immigration detention. Most, like Carolina, haven’t seen family since the raid, as they’re being held more than 10 hours away in Louisiana.

When the Bristol Herald Courier spoke to Carolina Friday afternoon through an interpreter provided by TIRRC, she expected her husband home at any moment.

She said she spent two weeks gathering documents needed for his bond hearing, which community members helped her scan and send to pro bono lawyers in Louisiana. He was released around 5 p.m. Thursday.

Her brother-in-law didn’t accompany her husband home, though. His bond hearing was postponed to mid-May, she said. The same is true for Carolina’s neighbor, a wife and mother whose son frequently asks where his mom is and when she’s coming back.

“We are all living in fear. We don’t want more families to be separated,” she said.

The Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative, part of Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project, is providing pro bono counsel to more than 20 Morristown detainees — the majority at LaSalle, an immigration facility in Jena, Louisiana. The Guardian has called the facility “part of Trump’s attempt to fast-track deportations.”

These lawyers are supporting detainees during their bond hearings. The goal, according to Michelle Lapointe, acting deputy legal director of SPLC, is to get them out of what are essentially immigration prisons before connecting them with pro bono lawyers for the next phase of their cases. SPLC began providing pro bono counsel to LaSalle detainees around a year ago.

“There’s an extreme lack of access to counsel because of the location of these detention centers in extremely remote, rural locations where there’s not a lot of lawyers, period, and certainly not immigration lawyers and certainly not immigration lawyers who operate on a pro bono basis,” Lapointe said.

Even those who get attorneys often have trouble communicating and meeting with them. The day before the Morristown raid, SPLC filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of detainees at LaSalle and two Georgia facilities, saying they were being unconstitutionally blocked access to counsel.

LaSalle, which is operated by publicly traded company The Geo Group, has just one attorney visitation room for more than 1,200 detainees, according to the lawsuit. Meanwhile, phone calls must be arranged in advance and are limited to 20 minutes. The outsized raid meant an outsized number of folks who needed to see an attorney at once, Lapointe added.

On Friday, SPLC filed an emergency request for a preliminary injunction asking a judge to order additional space for attorney visits at the prison and to remove the cap on calls.

Detainees with counsel are more likely to be released on bond, according to the lawsuit. While bond release comes at a judge’s discretion, documents showing someone has family and roots in the community can help. TIRRC has been helping family members gather those documents, Executive



Director Stephanie Teatro said. Some local churches have also drafted character letters for people detained.

Judges consider whether someone is thought to be a danger to the community and if they are likely to return for subsequent court hearings, according to a guide from the National Immigration Law Center. Detention is mandated for those who have been convicted of felonies or drug offenses, among others.

Those released on bond who return to East Tennessee would have their cases transferred to the Memphis immigration court, according to Lapointe.

“They’re still going to be in deportation proceedings, they’re still going to have to fight their case in front of a judge, but instead of waiting for their day in court in a detention center in Louisiana, they would be able to wait here with their families,” Teatro explained. “We’ve been working hard to build strong cases to get as many people out on bond as we can.”

Cases tend to move faster when bond is denied, according to Lapointe. As of early Friday afternoon, Teatro said more than 10 Morristown detainees in Louisiana had been granted bond. Teatro knows of one person who has been denied bond thus far.

The crisis pace of the first few days after the raid has slowed, Teatro said, but the gravity of the situation is starting to sink in.

“A month out, you can imagine for a family that has an income earner ripped out, a lot of the people we’ve been working with have really been struggling economically, trying to make ends meet while their loved one’s in detention and then also trying to raise money for bond,” she said.

“There’s some people who this week or next week are going to receive really hard news that their family member isn’t going to be eligible for bond — and they’ll continue for another month or more, several months, without seeing their loved one,” she added.

http://www.heraldcourier.com/news/bo...b34380ba1.html

ICE carries out largest workplace raid in a decade at a Tennessee meat plant