[ad_1]
The Legal Aid Lawyers Association along with dozens of unions, immigrant rights organizations and community groups held a rally on December 7, 2017 in Brooklyn Borough Hall to call the Office of Court Administration and Chief Justice Janet DiFiore to ban immigration. The customs enforcement officers of the state law offices and put an end to the coordination with ICE.
Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images
Hide The Legend
Show Subtitle
Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images
The Legal Aid Lawyers Association along with dozens of unions, immigrant rights organizations and community groups held a rally on December 7, 2017 in Brooklyn Borough Hall to call the Office of Court Administration and Chief Justice Janet DiFiore to ban immigration. And end the coordination with ICE.
Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images
For 25 years, federal immigration officers have been banned in schools, hospitals and places of worship. Now, a group of dozens of former federal and state judges are asking the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to add courthouses to the list of "sensitive places" where their officers do not usually go.
"Judges simply can not do their job – and our justice system can not function effectively – if victims, defendants, witnesses and family members do not feel safe to access the palace of justice, "said the judges in a letter to Ronald Vitiello, acting director, on Wednesday. "The fact that ICE relies on arrests of immigrants in courthouses is creating fear among its clients and dissuades them from seeking justice in a courthouse."
Judges cited reports of a marked increase in court activity in the courts over the past two years. A study by the Immigrant Defense Project revealed a 1200% increase in the number of arrests and attempted arrests in the state of New York between 2016 and 2017. Arrests were documented in dozens of states, have written judges, affecting victims of domestic violence, parents seeking to protect children living in dangerous living conditions and even victims of human trafficking.
"We know from experience that for the courts to do justice, guarantee public safety and serve their communities, the public must be able to access courthouses safely and without fear of retribution," the judges said. "For many, however, the arrests in ICE courthouses have made courts a place to avoid."
In a memo dated January, ICE stated that it would limit its civil immigration actions inside courthouses to certain people, such as convictions or persons who constitute a threat to national security. ICE agents will not attack family members of arrest targets unless they attempt to intervene. Officers "must exercise good judgment when they apply federal law and make considerable efforts to avoid unnecessarily worrying the public," says the memo.
This insurance does not go far enough, wrote the judges. "After nearly two years of highly publicized activity in the ICE courts, only unequivocal guarantees and protections will restore public confidence in the fact that it can do justice in all fairness in our courts of law. country."
Arrests appear to occur more frequently "because some law enforcement agencies no longer work with CIE agents as easily as before." The growing reluctance of some jurisdictions to cooperating with ICE for the safe and orderly transfer of targeted aliens to their prisons and prisons has necessitated further general arrests. "
Source link
