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  1. #1
    Senior Member American-ized's Avatar
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    CA-Santa Ana man joins lawsuit against immigration officials

    Santa Ana man joins lawsuit against immigration officials

    Abelardo Chavez Flores said he was treated inhumanely at a detention facility in downtown Los Angeles.

    Thursday, April 2, 2009
    BY CINDY CARCAMO
    The Orange County Register

    A Santa Ana man said he was unable to brush his teeth for two weeks, unable to change his clothes for more than a month and forced to sleep on a concrete floor while held at an immigration detention facility known as B-18 in downtown Los Angeles.

    "I hope no one else has to live through what I did. You don't treat a human being in this way," Abelardo Chavez Flores said of his detention.

    The 52-year-old is one of five plaintiffs represented in a lawsuit the ACLU of Southern California filed against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ACLU attorney's announced today at a press conference.

    The lawsuit, filed today, alleges "egregious treatment" of immigrants at B-18, which is the room number of the basement of a federal building in downtown Los Angeles.

    ICE officials wouldn't comment on pending litigation as a matter of policy, they said in a written statement.

    "It should be noted, however, that Homeland Security Secretary (Janet) Napolitano has called for a comprehensive review of the nation's immigration detention practices. The Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are committed to making measurable, sustainable progress in these areas and we pledge to ensure it occurs," the statement added.

    "ICE and DHS are committed to providing secure, safe and humane treatment for all of our detainees. We are continuing to work with other agencies and stakeholders to improve services to those in our custody."

    The lawsuit tells a different story, stating that detainees were not provided with human health needs, such as soap and toothpaste. In addition, the suit contends that people were held in conditions that amounted to a denial of due process because they were allegedly cut off from the outside world.

    "Immigration authorities routinely detain people for weeks at a time without providing them with soap, feminine sanitary products, changes of clothing, toothbrushes, toothpaste, showers…and many of the other rudimentary necessities of decent human life," the lawsuit states. "B-18 is regularly overcrowded, causing violence, safety hazards and humiliation."

    Orihuela said up to 250 people were held at the facility recently. Anywhere from 60 to 70 detainees are confined to one holding area, she added.

    The problem is that B-18 was never intended for use as a long-term detention facility, said Marisol Orihuela, an attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. Instead the room was designed to hold people for short periods of time, probably no more than 12 hours, she added.

    "However, in a perverse distortion of the facility's purpose, immigration authorities routinely circumvent this limitation by shuttling inmates to jails in the local area where they stay overnight and on the weekends," the lawsuit states. "The next morning, authorities shuttle the detainees back to B-18 to being the cycle all over again."

    As a result, the lawsuit claims, immigration officials incarcerate detainees at the room for weeks and sometimes over a month and fail to provide a full range of services and facilities that may be available to inmates at the local jails and long-term immigration facilities.

    "Detainees cannot send or receive mail of any sort, have no access to paper or pens, law libraries, or means for private telephone conversations with legal representatives," the lawsuit contends. "As a result, the conditions under which these detainees live violate their access to courts, their right to seek representation or counsel and their rights under the First Amendment."

    Abelardo Flores said he almost missed the chance to appeal on his detention case because the paperwork was confiscated by ICE officials at B-18. Orihuela said its procedure for detention officials at the facility to confiscate detainees' personal possessions.

    Orihuela would not allow Flores to discuss his immigration status but she did say that ICE officials believed he could be removed from the country.

    Eventually, Flores was able to contact ACLU attorneys who filed the appeal on his behalf. Flores won his appeal and is now free but could be detained again while his legal case is pending.

    ICE officials first detained Flores in May of last year at his Santa Ana home. Officials, Flores said, were looking for another man who they couldn't find and ended up detaining him anyway.

    "I was so worried for my children," said the single father of two teenagers. "I couldn't contact them because the number I had was locked up with my personal possessions. I didn't know if they were eating, sleeping."

    Flores said he was taken to a facility in Mira Loma and then transferred after he said he asked to see a doctor for backaches. Flores said he was never given medical attention and instead moved to B-18 where he said there was about one bathroom for a hundred people.

    "Sometimes many would just pee where they were, on the floor," he said. "That was the same floor we had to sleep on."

    Flores who said he ended up losing his home and virtually everything he had because of the detention, added that he's grateful that at least he was reunited with his children.

    "I just always thought about my family and that kept me strong," he said. "It kept me going."

    Contact the writer: 714-445-6688 or ccarcamo@ocregister.com

    Feel free to add your comments by clicking the link below:

    http://www.ocregister.com/articles/flor ... ls-lawsuit

  2. #2
    ELE
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    Illegals are unwelcome!

    Illegals don't have rights to "due process" in our country.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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    Detainees cannot send or receive mail of any sort, have no access to paper or pens, law libraries, or means for private telephone conversations with legal representatives," the lawsuit contends. "As a result, the conditions under which these detainees live violate their access to courts, their right to seek representation or counsel and their rights under the First Amendment."
    Matters of immigration violations are administrative in nature and do not afford any Constitutional protections, such as 6th Amendment right to counsel, as would be the case in a criminal proceeding. The state is not attempting to deprive anyone of their life or liberty. Rather, they will simply be shipped back to their RIGHTFUL countries of orgin, in which they hold citizenship.

    So what if it's a little unpleasent during the interim. Don't come here illegally and you will not have to worry about being treated in a manner than your less accustomed to.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  4. #4
    Senior Member vmonkey56's Avatar
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    Related in traffic court in Chatham Co., NC:

    http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-152119.html

    No one has to use ID to verify one's self to ticket or for appearance.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  5. #5
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    "I was so worried for my children," said the single father of two teenagers. "I couldn't contact them because the number I had was locked up with my personal possessions. I didn't know if they were eating, sleeping."
    So where are the teenagers? Or is this guy so dumb he doesn't remember his home phone number or at least one cell phone number? It kind of make me start to wonder about the rest of his story.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by vortex
    "I was so worried for my children," said the single father of two teenagers. "I couldn't contact them because the number I had was locked up with my personal possessions. I didn't know if they were eating, sleeping."
    So where are the teenagers? Or is this guy so dumb he doesn't remember his home phone number or at least one cell phone number? It kind of make me start to wonder about the rest of his story.
    Apparently, the ACLU feels that being unable to access a phone number violates the First Amendment somehow!

    Notice how he did not say he was denied a telephone, but rather access to a phone number that most reasonable people would have probably memorized if it involved their children.

    Just another meritless claim by the ACLU!
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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