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Legal settlement may set precedent for detained immigrants seeking lawyers
Source: The Guardian
Legal settlement may set precedent for detained immigrants seeking lawyers
Detainees at four facilities in northern California will be permitted freer
access to phones to contact legal counsel, a right they claimed was routinely
denied
Oliver Laughland in New York
Tuesday 14 June 2016 14.56 BST
Thousands of immigrants detained in facilities in northern California will enjoy improved access to legal counsel, following a major class action settlement that lawyers hope will set a nationwide precedent.
The settlement will ensure detainees at four centres are permitted freer access to telephones in order to contact attorneys throughout their removal proceedings, a right they claimed was routinely denied due to unconstitutional restrictions that violated Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s own guidelines.
Plaintiffs argued that officials at the West County detention facility, the Yuba County jail, Rio Cosumnes correctional center and Mesa Verde detention facility, employed a number of policies, including prohibitively expensive tariffs and automatically timed hangups, which in effect barred many inmates from accessing facility phones. They also highlighted that phones automatically cut off if they rang through to voicemail or if they connected to an automated system, and that detainees could not receive incoming calls.
The lawsuit added that some inmates were only allowed to make phone calls during a “free time” window, often as short as two hours a day, when allowed out of their cells, and claimed that many telephones were located in common areas meaning little privacy during sensitive legal conversations.
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Detainees at four facilities in northern California will be permitted freer
access to phones to contact legal counsel, a right they claimed was routinely
denied
Oliver Laughland in New York
Tuesday 14 June 2016 14.56 BST
Thousands of immigrants detained in facilities in northern California will enjoy improved access to legal counsel, following a major class action settlement that lawyers hope will set a nationwide precedent.
The settlement will ensure detainees at four centres are permitted freer access to telephones in order to contact attorneys throughout their removal proceedings, a right they claimed was routinely denied due to unconstitutional restrictions that violated Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s own guidelines.
Plaintiffs argued that officials at the West County detention facility, the Yuba County jail, Rio Cosumnes correctional center and Mesa Verde detention facility, employed a number of policies, including prohibitively expensive tariffs and automatically timed hangups, which in effect barred many inmates from accessing facility phones. They also highlighted that phones automatically cut off if they rang through to voicemail or if they connected to an automated system, and that detainees could not receive incoming calls.
The lawsuit added that some inmates were only allowed to make phone calls during a “free time” window, often as short as two hours a day, when allowed out of their cells, and claimed that many telephones were located in common areas meaning little privacy during sensitive legal conversations.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/14/immigration-lawyers-detainees-class-action-suit-california