Advocates Sue DHS Over Immigrant Deportation
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., November 12, 2008-
Today a coalition of immigrants’ rights organizations asked a federal judge to compel the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to disclose information about a program under which it removes non-citizens from the U.S. without hearings before immigration judges. The program, called “stipulated removal,” has resulted in the removal of over 96,000 non-citizens since its inception in 1999.
Stipulated removal allows the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to remove a non-citizen, even one with valid defenses against deportation, as long as the non-citizen signs an order. DHS appears to target non-citizens in immigration detention for stipulated removal, and does not allow the non-citizen to appear before a judge prior to being deported. Advocates have expressed concerns that immigrants signing these orders do not realize they are giving up their rights to challenge their deportation.
News reports, Congressional testimony, and agency press releases reveal that the DHS and DOJ have broadly implemented stipulated removal on a nationwide basis for at least 12 years. However, DHS and DOJ have failed to produce records that reflect the full scope of stipulated removal’s implementation, and the select information DHS and DOJ have divulged to date provide a “strong indication that other documents have been improperly withheld.”
“DHS is running a federal program that has resulted in the deportation of almost 100,000 people without legal hearings, and yet the public knows very little about the program,” said Jayashri Srikantiah, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Stanford Law School. “Stipulated removal raises serious due process concerns because immigrant detainees may not know that they are signing away their rights, and no judge ever speaks to the detainee to ensure that they understand the process.”
The lawsuit comes after two FOIA requests in December 2005 and February 2008 yielded only minimal information. Karen Tumlin, Staff Attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, observes: “DHS has revealed close to nothing about a program that impacts thousands of immigrants’ due process rights. The stipulated removal program gives detained immigrants an impossible choice: sign away your rights or stay in detention.”
“Immigrant detainees may be refugees or have U.S. citizen family members,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, an ACLU of Southern California staff attorney. “The public should know whether DHS is pressuring these detainees to give up their right to a hearing.”
“Stipulated removal appears to target the most vulnerable parts of the immigrant population,” observed Carlos Villarreal, Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild - San Francisco Bay Area. “Immigrant detainees often lack the money to pay for lawyers and bond money to get out of detention.”
Jennifer Lee Koh, Cooley Godward Kronish Fellow with Stanford Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, said: “Before DHS further expands its implementation of stipulated removal, the public should know whether the program satisfies basic due process requirements. Immigrant detainees should know exactly what they are giving up when they sign a stipulated order.”
A copy of the complaint filed today in federal district court will be available later today at www.nilc.org.
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