AP
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A mother and two young children are fighting for their release from a detention center for Texas immigration in what would be the first trial involving children contesting the Trump administration policy on the arrests of immigrants in the courts of justice.
The trial brought on Tuesday argues that family arrests after smoking Honduras and legally entered the United States using an appointment of the Biden era violent their right to the fourth amendment to be free of searches and unreasonable seizures and their law of the fifth amendment to the regular process.
“The overview is that the executive branch cannot seize people, stop people, hold people indefinitely when they comply exactly what our government has demanded from them,” said the professor of the law faculty of Columbia, Elora Mukherjee, one of the lawyers representing the family.
The Ministry of Internal Security did not immediately respond to an email asking for comments.
From May, the country saw Large -scale arrests in which asylum seekers appearing during routine hearings were arrested outside the hearing rooms as part of the White House massive expulsion effort. In many cases, a judge will grant a government lawyer the request to reject the expulsion procedure, then the American immigration and customs agents will stop the person and place them on “accelerated removal”, a fast way to expulsion.
Mukherjee said it was the first trial brought in the name of the children to challenge the ICE justice palace’s arrest policy. The government has until July 1 to answer.
There were other similar proceedings, notably in New York, where The federal judge ruled Earlier this month, the federal immigration authorities cannot make civil arrests at the state courthouses or the arrest that went there for a procedure.
The Texas trial was filed using the initials for children and “Mme Z” for the mother. Their identities were not released due to concerns for their security.
For weeks in the Dilley Immigration Processing CenterThe mother looked at the decline in her 6 -year -old son, said Mukherjee. He recently underwent chemotherapy treatment for leukemia and due to his arrest failed to meet the doctor, said Mukherjee.
“He died easily. He has bone pain. He looks pale,” said Mukherjee, adding that he had also lost his appetite. “His mother is terrified that it is symptoms that her leukemia situation could deteriorate.”
The 9 -year -old mother, son and daughter fled Honduras in October 2024 due to death threats, according to the trial. They entered the United States using The CBP One application And were put to parole in the country by the Ministry of Internal Security, which determined that they did not put a danger to the community, said Mukherjee. They were told to appear before an immigration court in Los Angeles on May 29.
President Donald Trump put an end to CBP One for new entrants on his first day of power after more than 900,000 people were authorized in the country using the application since it was extended to include migrants in January 2023.
During the family hearing, the mother tried to tell the judge that she wanted to continue her business for asylum, said Mukherjee. Homeland Security decided to reject their affairs and the judge immediately granted this request.
When they left the courtroom, they found men in civilian clothes suspected of being ice agents who arrested the family, said Mukherjee. They spent about 11 hours in an immigrant transformation center in Los Angeles and received only one apple, a small packet of cookies, a juice box and water.
At one point, an officer near the boy lifted his shirt, revealing his weapon. The boy urinated on himself and was left in wet clothes until the next morning, said Mukherjee.
They were then taken to the treatment center, where they have been detained since.
“The family suffers in this immigration detention center,” she said. “Children cry every night. They pray to God for their release from this detention center. ”
Their lawyers have appealed to the May decision of the immigration judge, but they may be expelled in a few days because the government says they are subject to an accelerated dismissal, Mukherjee said.
The family’s arrests were illegal and unjustified, said Kate Gibson Kumar, lawyer for Civil Texas Rights Project who also represents the family.
“The essential question in our case is that when you have these families who do everything correctly, especially with young children, should there be protection there?” Gibson Kumar said. “We say” yes “.”
