Boston, Massachusetts - Recent judicial decisions have given new life to class action suits involving immigrant detainees that are pending in the Northern Alabama and Western Louisiana District Courts. Although officials within the court system have challenged the legitimacy of these suits, the presiding judges have recommended that these objections be withdrawn.
Both suits are being filed on behalf of hundreds of detainees held in facilities under the jurisdiction of the New Orleans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) District Office. The suits which include Brown et. al. v. Ridge et. al. (Western Louisiana District) and Abimbola et. al. v. Robinson et. al. (Northern Alabama District) are also being litigated by the plaintiffs, who are all current or former detainees.
Some of the conditions cited in the class action suits include:
· The use of unauthorized physical punishment to intimidate detainees,
· medical negligence (which has led to the death of at least one detainee in late summer 2004),
· violations of detainees’ rights to have access to legal materials that would allow them to litigate their cases,
· unreasonable barriers to communication with legal counsel and others on the outside, and
· lack of accommodation for the religious observance of non-Christian faiths.
The Abimbola class action suit, currently sitting in the Northern Alabama District, had encountered objections that the court could not entertain a class action suit—a claim which contradicts the federal rules of civil procedure. It also encountered objections that the plaintiffs had failed to pay a filing fee required by the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act. Both of these objections have since been withdrawn by the presiding judge.
The Brown class action suit, sitting in the Western Louisiana District Court, encountered objections that its plaintiffs no longer constitute a “class”—since some of the plaintiffs who are filing suit are no longer detainees. One of these plaintiffs, Malik Ndaula (who is also a plaintiff on the Abimbola suit) was released from detention in May 2004 and is currently working at the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.
Although this original challenge has been surmounted, the Brown suit is still facing serious objections from a magistrate in the Western Louisiana District Court. One objection is that the plaintiffs have “rushed” into litigation, violating the1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act which asserts that prisoners must exhaust all possible administrative remedies before taking their grievances to court (i.e. entering into private negotiations with prison officials). Another objection is that Ndaula is not competent to bring the case to court as a lay person who has not been admitted to the legal bar.
Both of these objections raise issues that should be of interest to immigrant rights advocates. The first objection denies the validity of the case on the basis that detainees are subject to the same rules and regulations that apply to prisoners. This argument has been advanced despite the fact that detainees are regularly denied due process rights afforded to incarcerated persons on the basis that they are not being held by the criminal justice system. This same distinction between incarcerated persons and immigrant detainees has also been used to justify the indefinite detention of noncitizens (who are not serving a fixed sentence but waiting for the immigration system to resolve their legal status—notwithstanding a recent decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on Clark et. al. v. Martinez, which questions the validity of indefinite detention).
The second objection challenges the right of detainees (and former detainees) from arguing class action suits, despite that fact that non-attorneys are not formally barred from this activity. It also challenges the legal model of the National Lawyers Guild, which has historically sought to affirm the rights of incarcerated and detained persons to litigate their own cases. Ndaula, in particular, has proven that he is an effective litigant—given that he represented himself (pro se) in proceedings with the immigration system that resulted in his release in May 2004. Ndaula has also recently received a two year fellowship from the Open Society Institute which will support his efforts to improve the legal aid available to immigrant detainees through a special program titled, Keeping Hope Alive (www.nationalimmigrationproject.org/KHA.htm).
Ndaula will be filing a response to these objections within the next several weeks, with support from ACLU staff attorneys and Dan Kesselbrenner, Director of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.
For more information contact Phil Kretsedemas at 617 227 9727 ext 6 or E-mail phil@nationalimmigrationproject.org at the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. See the National Immigration Project’s press room for other updates. Visit www.nationalimmigrationproject.org/Press.htm Non-Explorer browsers can access this site at www.nationalimmigrationproject.org/Press(alt).htm