Judge Finds Trump Admin Blocks Migrants' Access To Lawyers

It’s bad enough that the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration crackdown has resulted in the arrests of mostly brown people who are not criminals but came to the U.S. looking for a better, safer life. It’s bad enough that federal immigration agents are out here arresting migrants at their immigration hearings. It is bad enough that federal judges keep having to tell this administration that its agents need to stop racially profiling, abusing their power with tear gas and other forms of police brutality, arresting people without proper warrants, and that the federal government can’t just deport people for engaging in protests it opposes.

But now, a federal judge is having to explain to the administration of President Donald Trump that it can’t block immigrants’ access to attorneys, and not for the first time.

According to the Associated Press, federal Judge Maame E. Frimpong of Los Angeles found Friday that the Trump administration is still violating detained immigrants’ constitutional rights by restricting their access to attorneys at a detention facility in L.A., and ruled that it needed to stop doing that. The ruling came as a result of a lawsuit immigrant advocacy groups filed in July, accusing the administration of systematically targeting brown people in Southern California as part of Trump’s mass deportation agenda in the region.

Frimpong’s ruling reinforces a temporary order implemented in July that required the government to provide detainees with access to free confidential phone calls with their lawyers, a basic tenet of due process, and a wild thing for a judge to even have to specifically order the government to do.

From AP:

The judge said that the plaintiffs had provided evidence that the government had not fully abided by the July order.

It required the detention facility to be open for attorney visitation seven days per week, for a minimum of eight hours per day on weekdays and a minimum of four hours per day on weekends and holidays. While the government has complied with that, the court also required officials to notify the plaintiffs in the lawsuit within four hours if they needed to close the detention facility for any reason, and that the closure not stretch longer than “reasonably necessary.”

“The Court has examined all of the new evidence presented by both sides and decides once again that the federal government is partially blocking access to lawyers,” Frimpong wrote in her order.

Last month, Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney with Public Counsel, said at a court hearing that lawyers were still having trouble meeting with their clients, and that they hadn’t been receiving notice of any facility closures until Sept. 10. Rosenbaum said that even when attorneys could meet with their clients, they had to do so with the door open and guards present, a clear violation of attorney-client privilege. Beyond all that, many detainees were moved around frequently and without warning, he said, adding that sometimes they were moved to facilities that didn’t allow visitation at all.

“By granting this preliminary injunction, the judge made clear that the government cannot lock people up and cut them off from their lawyers,” Rosenbaum said in a statement after the ruling.

All we hear about from MAGA supporters who wish to differentiate themselves from those who just hate non-white people and want all brown immigrants gone is that they don’t mind immigrants as long as they follow the legal process. Well, what happens when the government treats that legal process like an obstacle it would rather avoid? At what point can we admit this immigration crackdown isn’t about legality at all? Can we just call it what it is, white nationalism under penalty of law?

Because that’s what’s going on here. These oversights on the part of the government aren’t accidental; they’re part of a larger strategy. This is what they mean when they say they’re making America great again.

SEE ALSO:

Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Escalates Ignoring Rule Of Law

Ethiopian Immigrants Live With Fear, Anxiety In Washington

Judge Orders Trump Administration To Stop Blocking Immigrants’ Access To Lawyers was originally published on newsone.com