U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining many people who have already successfully proved in immigration court that they would likely be tortured if returned to their home countries and that they qualify for protection.
Winning these cases is extremely difficult, and even more so for people who are held in detention centers. Yet ICE often opts to keep people in custody even though they have convinced immigration judges through evidence and testimony that they qualify for protection while the agency appeals — sometimes repeatedly. And sometimes, when judges rule that they cannot be sent back to their home countries, ICE seeks to deport them to a third country, while keeping them locked up, said Austin Rose, an immigration attorney with Amica Center for Immigrant Rights who helped file a class-action lawsuit against these prolonged detentions.
