TODAY, we’ll be in Laredo, TX, testifying before the @CIDH.
We’re talking about how our clients in detention centers are *daily* denied access to legal counsel, how we've seen countless asylum-seekers denied protections for procedural reasons.
The legal situation in detention is dire. Asylum-seekers face a byzantine system that's set up to deny them protections & deport them back to danger.
Often, a lawyer is their only hope, but they're not guaranteed counsel.
In detention, ICE & private prisons block us often.
Asylum-seekers are treated like vermin. You already know the dangers of detention—cold rooms, illness, abusive guards, poor food, etc.
Folks are jailed for weeks w/no access to lawyers.
Now, with this change to Flores, families could be kept far longer. nytimes.com/2019/08/20/us/…
Imprisonment is rife with abuse.
Earlier this year, we filed suit against private prison firm Geo Group for forcibly separating fathers from their sons.
This is what people go through caged. They should be allowed out. They should be allowed lawyers.
raicestexas.org/2019/05/28/rai…
And under Remain in Mexico, people are forced to go even farther w/out legal counsel, shuffled across the border to Mexico or beyond to await hearings.
No lawyers can meet them there. It's essentially a permanent deportation order, & often a death sentence.
Our entire legal system for asylum-seekers right now is mean to deter them from coming.
If they make it to the border, we send them back w/out lawyers. If they make it across, we jail them w/out lawyers. If they make it out of detention, we don't guarantee any legal counsel.
It's a daily betrayal of our commitments under both the American & international law.
*Everyone* deserves due process. *Everyone* deserves a lawyer.
We're sending ppl to death b/c they're denied asylum on administrative grounds that a lawyer could easily fix.
It's grotesque.
We're going to tell the IAHCR all of this & more.
They have the authority to make site visits & recommend changes to US policy.
We need more international bodies focusing their attention on the human rights abuses happening at our southern border & throughout the country.
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.