Washington D.C. - A federal district court today found that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is violating the constitutional rights of people detained in holding facilities in Arizona and ordered the government to take steps to improve conditions in these facilities, known as hieleras. This is the latest turn in a legal challenge filed in June 2015 by the American Immigration Council, National Immigration Law Center, Morrison & Foerster, the ACLU of Arizona, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.
“This decision represents critical progress in rectifying CBP’s reprehensible treatment of individuals arriving in the United States,” according to Melissa Crow, Legal Director of the American Immigration Council. “Based on the damning evidence presented by the Plaintiffs, the Court properly rejected the agency’s excuses that it had done everything within its means to protect the health and safety of those in its custody.”
“Today is a victory for our plaintiffs, and a victory for the Constitution,” said Nora Preciado, a staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center. “No one, regardless of where they were born, should be subjected to the deplorable conditions our plaintiffs and other class members endured in the hieleras and we will ensure this order is implemented swiftly.”