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Judge promises ruling on illegal immigrant case today

By Rob Margetta
SouthCoastToday.com
April 06, 2007 2:00 PM

BOSTON -About 50 New Bedford Mayans, some wearing colorful traditional garb, attended a federal court hearing today that could allow attorneys to access illegal immigrants sent to a Texas detention fracility after the March 6 raid at Michael Bianco, Inc.
The case was brought before Judge Robert Stearns by a coalition of lawyers representing the detainees picked up in the raid.

Bernard J. Bonn IIi asked Judge Stearns to halt the deportation of those detainees until Massachusetts lawyers can talk to them.
Mr. Bonn said about 200 illegal immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras were sent to Texas. The government has said it plans to deport 113 of those people soon.

Mr. Bonn said about half of that group consists of people with prior deportation orders and the other half are people who went before a Texas immigration judge and waived their deportation rights.
Mr. Bonn said the immigrants who waived their rights likely did not know the full extent of their rights.

“Some of these people may be entitled to some type of asylum, but we don’t know that and they can’t know that, at least not until they speak to counsel,” he said in court.

He told Judge Stearns Massachusetts attorneys have asked to speak with the Texas detainees but the government refused those requests.

In fact, Mr. Bonn said Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the attorneys they could only speak to the detainees if they asked on a case by case basis. He said that is impossible because the government has refused to provide the detainees’ names.

Elizabeth Stevens, a lawyer for ICE, said deportation rules specifically prohibit providing detainees identities to outside agencies.
“There are Privacy Act considerations,” she said. “It’s the government’s position that the right to speak with counsel doesn’t apply to counsel but to the individual aliens themselves.....Normal detention procedure says you can’t just walk up and say ‘I just want to talk to everyone.’ You say ‘I want to talk to one person.’”

Judge Stearns indicated that those with prior orders may be outside of his jurisdiction but his ruling could affect those who waived their rights. The judge even told Ms. Stevens that Mr. Bonn’s argument to send lawyers to Texas seems reasonable.

“I’m not sure the government wants to create a public relations debacle,” he said. “It seems a reasonable enough request. I’m just sort of baffled by the government’s position.”

The judge promised an order by the end of the day on the temporary restraining order. The same attorneys are due for another hearing before Judge Stearns April 19 on the larger issue of whether Mr. Bonn and his associates are arguing their case in the correct court.

Contact Rob Margetta at rmargetta@s-t.com