ACLU Files Suit on Behalf of Refugee Children

ACLU refugee children The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed suit on behalf of the 1000s of refugee children being held in detention centers in the southwest.

The ACLU suit claims that the children should have legal representation when they go through their deportation proceedings.

I have witnessed several immigration hearings for people with and without lawyers. Setting aside anxiety and potential Spanish/English/indigenous language barriers, judges and lawyers have their own lingo and their own rules. Even adult non-lawyers can get tripped up by the legal system. These deportation hearings are literally a life or death matter for the refugee children. There is a fine line between being label a refugee who is fleeing violence and persecution in her homeland (OK, you can stay) or a migrant who broke US law and crossed the border (Hasta luego).

Providing them with lawyers is the humanitarian thing to do to. I also believe that the government should make every effort to hook up these minors with relatives who are in the US. (I have this to say to the people who claim the US can’t afford to care for these children and treat them humanely: TAX THE RICH.)

From the ACLU..

Eleven-year-old Luisa was too young to apply on her own for a visa to come from Guatemala to the United States where she hoped to be reunited with her mother. But since federal immigration authorities detained her last year in Texas, Luisa has learned that she is apparently not too young to act as her own lawyer as federal immigration officials move to deport her back to her native Guatemala.

During a recent hearing in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom, Luisa and more than two dozen other children crowded into a small room where the U.S. government has begun deportation hearings against them. Some sat quietly, feet dangling from benches. Others, who spoke indigenous languages and understood little Spanish, looked nervously around struggling to understand the proceedings.

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“Moderate” Scott Smith blames the President for coyotes and drug cartels

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Hi there, fellow liberals who persist in believing that AZ Governor candidate Scott Smith is a nice guy and won’t be too bad as Governor and isn’t like all those other lunatics in that primary. Take a gander at Smith’s latest press release (emphasis mine):

For Immediate Release
June 25, 2014 Contact: Drew Sexton
(602) 738-1187
drew@votescottsmith.com

Mayor Scott Smith Calls For Expedited Removal Hearings For Illegal Immigrants; Calls Out Obama Administration For Risking Children’s Lives, Betraying National Security, “Empowering Coyotes, Cartels, Organized Crime”
Expedited Removal Hearings would send unaccompanied minors, illegal adults home ASAP, end “mixed message” to would-be border crossers

MESA—Mayor Scott Smith, Republican candidate for Arizona Governor, today called on the Obama Administration to immediately end its use of parole hearings to keep illegal border crossers in the United States indefinitely, instead calling on the President and DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson to use the Expedited Removal Hearings process to speed up the removal of the more than 90,000 illegal immigrants who have crossed the American border since October.

“We need to stop putting children’s lives at risk. We need stop betraying the security of our country and we absolutely need to end the mixed message President Obama and Secretary Johnson are sending to border crossers streaming across the Mexican border,” said Smith. “The Expedited Removal Process is legal and humane – and it will put an exclamation point on securing the American border.

“The Obama Administration needs to stop empowering the coyotes, cartels and organized crime syndicates who traffic in human beings. We can’t allow criminals to continue to profit by luring tens of thousands more children and families by giving them false hope. These predators are victimizing would-be border crossers, and the Administration is aiding and abetting that crime. We need to send an unequivocal message not to leave your homeland. If you cross into this country illegally, you will be removed just as quickly as you got here, no matter who you are.”

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