Nearly 180 Maine attorneys have sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and DHS Secretary John Kelly demanding an end to the arrests of immigrants at courthouses, following ICE sweeping up a 28-year-old immigrant as he was leaving a non-immigration related hearing:
The arrest of Abdi Ali last week at the Cumberland County Courthouse prompted 179 Maine attorneys to send a letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly saying arrests at courthouses "undermine the fundamental constitutional guarantee" of the right to seek redress from the court system.
“No one should be afraid to seek justice because of his or her immigration status,” the letter says.
The lawyers said courthouses should be treated as schools, churches and other sensitive locations where federal agents avoid immigration-related arrests. “Courthouses are sacred to our democracy, and they should also be included on the … list of sensitive locations,” they wrote.
A newly-unshackled ICE disagreed, saying “the federal agency does not consider courts to be sensitive locations, although such arrests are avoided when possible.” Except ICE has not avoided making “such arrests,” in fact even drawing criticism from the chief justice of the Supreme Court of California, who in a letter accused the agency of using courthouses as “bait” in order to arrest undocumented immigrants.
from Daily Kos http://ift.tt/2opKIqf
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