EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Four Venezuelan nationals confined in a federal immigration facility for almost a year are challenging the legality of their detention.
Three nonprofits on Friday petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of the migrants. They’re asking a federal judge in New Mexico to declare that their prolonged detention – from nine to 11.5 months – violates due process, and to order U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release them from the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral.
Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, and the Center for Constitutional Rights brought the civil lawsuit against the facility and ICE on behalf of Luis Eduardo Perez Parra, Leonel Jose Rivas Gonzalez, Abrahan Josue Barrios Morales and an individual only identified as M.R.R.Y.
The asylum-seekers passed credible fear interviews at the border that temporarily allowed them to stay in the U.S. An immigration judge later ordered their removal from the country. The repatriation got complicated due to deteriorating relations with Venezuela since the U.S. tightened sanctions on the Nicolas Maduro regime.
One of the migrants bringing the lawsuit allegedly was placed in solitary conferment for refusing to be removed to Mexico instead of Venezuela. Two others declined to go to Mexico because they know acquaintances who were harmed or kidnapped there, documents filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico show.
“Detaining people for prolonged periods without any meaningful recourse, especially after they have every reason to believe they should be released, not only violates their constitutional rights but inflicts severe psychological and physical harm,” said Rebecca Sheff, senior staff attorney for ACLU of New Mexico.
Border Report reached out to ICE but was told the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
As of March 2024, some 4,379 Venezuelan migrants were in ICE custody at detention facilities all over the country.
“ICE detention centers – and especially Otero County Processing Center – have a well-documented track record of ruthlessly stripping people of their humanity simply for being from a country that government officials do not like,” said Mikaila Hernandez, an attorney and justice fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Our clients are facing indefinite incarceration because U.S. foreign policy is impeding their deportations. [….] It is time to end the funding of these rampant human rights violations and abolish the caging of migrants.”
The defendants named in the lawsuit include Dora Castro, the Otero County Processing Center warden, ICE El Paso Field Office Director Mary De Anda-Ybarra, and the national leaders of ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.
Read: Read More