ACLU

Oct. 31 (UPI) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois sued the Trump administration Friday for allegedly violating the civil rights of those detained in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill.

The suit, which includes lawyers for the MacArthur Justice Center, the ACLU of Illinois and the Chicago law office of Eimer Stahl, was filed in federal court in Chicago, a press release said.

The suit demands that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and ICE “stop flouting the law inside Broadview.” The press release said the agencies “must obey the Constitution and provide the people they detain with ready access to counsel and humane conditions of confinement.”

Since the beginning of Operation Midway Blitz on Sept. 8, in which federal agents increased actions against undocumented immigrants in and around Chicago, protests and legal battles have ensued. On Tuesday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order on Gregory Bovino, a U.S. border patrol commander, after video footage showed Bovino throwing tear gas into a crowd during public demonstrations in Chicago and outside of the Broadview detention center. Clergy members, media groups and protesters had filed a suit alleging a “pattern of extreme brutality” intended to “silence the press” and American citizens.

Judge Sara Ellis ordered all agents to wear body cameras. She also ordered Bovino to check in with her daily, but an appeals court overturned that requirement.

“Everyone, no matter their legal status, has the right to access counsel and to not be subject to horrific and inhumane conditions,” said Alexa Van Brunt, director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Illinois office and lead counsel on the suit, in a statement. “Community members are being kidnapped off the streets, packed in hold cells, denied food, medical care, and basic necessities, and forced to sign away their legal rights. This is a vicious abuse of power and gross violation of basic human rights by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. It must end now.”

The press release said that agents at Broadview “have treated detainees abhorrently, depriving them of sleep, privacy, menstrual products, and the ability to shower.” Agents have repeatedly denied entry for attorneys, members of Congress, and religious and faith leaders, it said.

DHS has not responded to the suit or its allegations.

“This lawsuit is necessary because the Trump administration has attempted to evade accountability for turning the processing center at Broadview into a de facto detention center,” said Kevin Fee, legal director for the ACLU of Illinois, in a statement. “DHS personnel have denied access to counsel, legislators and journalists so that the harsh and deteriorating conditions at the facility can be shielded from public view. These conditions are unconstitutional and threaten to coerce people into sacrificing their rights without the benefit of legal advice and a full airing of their legal defenses.”

Lawyer Nate Eimer emphasized the importance of access to a lawyer.

“Access to counsel is not a privilege. It is a right,” Eimer, partner at Eimer Stahl and co-counsel in the lawsuit, said in a statement. “We can debate immigration policy but there is no debating the denial of legal rights and holding those detained in conditions that are not only unlawful but inhumane. Justice and compassion demand that our clients’ rights be upheld.”

BATON ROUGE, La. — The immigration detainees sent to a notorious Louisiana prison last month are being punished for crimes for which they have already served time, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday in a lawsuit challenging the government’s decision to hold what it calls the “worst of the worst” there.

The lawsuit accuses President Trump’s administration of selecting the former slave plantation known as Angola for its “uniquely horrifying history” and intentionally subjecting immigrant detainees to inhumane conditions — including foul water and lacking basic necessities — in violation of the Double Jeopardy clause, which protects people from being punished twice for the same crime.

The ACLU also alleges some immigrants detained at the newly opened “Louisiana Lockup” should be released because the government failed to deport them within six months of a removal order. The lawsuit cites a 2001 Supreme Court ruling raised in several recent immigration cases, including that of the Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, that says immigration detention should be “nonpunitive.”

“The anti-immigrant campaign under the guise of ‘Making America Safe Again’ does not remotely outweigh or justify indefinite detention in ‘America’s Bloodiest Prison’ without any of the rights afforded to criminal defendants,” ACLU attorneys argue in a petition reviewed by The Associated Press.

The AP sent requests for comment to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.

The lawsuit comes a month after state and federal authorities gathered at the sprawling Louisiana State Penitentiary to announce that the previously shuttered prison complex had been refurbished to house up to 400 immigrant detainees that officials said would include some of the most violent in ICE custody.

The complex had been nicknamed “the dungeon” because it previously held inmates in solitary cells for more than 23 hours a day.

ICE repurposed the facility amid an ongoing legal battle over an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” and as Trump continues his large-scale attempt to remove millions of people suspected of entering the country illegally. The federal government has been racing to to expand its deportation infrastructure and, with state allies, has announced other new facilities, including what it calls the “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana and the “Cornhusker Clink” in Nebraska. ICE is seeking to detain 100,000 people under a $45 billion expansion Trump signed into law in July.

At Angola last month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters the “legendary” maximum security prison, the largest in the nation, had been chosen to house a new ICE facility to encourage people in the U.S. illegally to self-deport. “This facility will hold the most dangerous of criminals,” she said.

Authorities said the immigration detainees would be isolated from Angola’s thousands of civil prisoners, many of whom are serving life sentences for violent offenses.

“I know you all in the media will attempt to have a field day with this facility, and you will try to find everything wrong with our operation in an effort to make those who broke the law in some of the most violent ways victims,” Landry, a Republican, said during a news conference last month.

“If you don’t think that they belong in somewhere like this, you’ve got a problem.”

The ACLU lawsuit says detainees at “Louisiana Lockup” already were “forced to go on hunger strike” to “demand basic necessities such as medical care, toilet paper, hygiene products and clean drinking water.” Detainees have described a long-neglected facility that was not yet prepared to house them, saying they are contending with mold, dust and ”black” water coming out of showers, court records show.

Federal and state officials have said those claims are part of a “false narrative” created by the media, and that the hunger strike only occurred after inaccurate reporting.

The lawsuit was filed in Baton Rouge federal court on behalf of Oscar Hernandez Amaya, a 34-year-old Honduran man who has been in ICE custody for two years. He was transferred to “Louisiana Lockup” last month from an ICE detention center in Pennsylvania.

Amaya fled Honduras two decades ago after refusing the violent MS-13 gang’s admonition “to torture and kill another human being,” the lawsuit alleges. The gang had recruited him at age 12, court documents say.

Amaya came to the United States, where he worked “without incident” until 2016. He was arrested that year and later convicted of attempted aggravated assault and sentenced to more than four years in prison. He was released on good-time credits after about two years and then transferred to ICE custody.

An immigration judge this year awarded Amaya “Convention Against Torture” protection from being returned to Honduras, the lawsuit says, but the U.S. government has failed to deport him to another country.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has been very clear that immigration detention cannot be used for punitive purposes,” Nora Ahmed, the ACLU of Louisiana’s legal director, told AP. “You cannot serve time for a crime in immigration detention.”

Mustian and Cline write for the Associated Press. Mustian reported from New York.