\n<\/p>\n
Rodney Taylor, a Liberia-born man who is a double amputee and is missing three fingers on one hand has filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court seeking release from Georgia\u2019s Stewart detention center, after being held there by Ice for eight months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is at stake in this case \u2026 is one of the most profound individual interests recognized by our legal system: whether Ice may unilaterally take away \u2013 without a lawful basis \u2013 his physical freedom, ie, his \u2018constitutionally protected interest in avoiding physical restraint,\u2019\u201d the petition says.<\/p>\n
The action is \u201ca canary in the coal mine for what\u2019s about to happen\u201d nationwide, said Sarah Owings, Taylor\u2019s immigration attorney. \u201c[T]housands of habeas claims are going to be filed across the country,\u201d she said, after a Board of Immigration Appeals decision on 5 September dramatically curtailed the immigration system\u2019s ability to release detainees while awaiting decisions on their status.<\/p>\n
This is making immigration attorneys turn to federal district courts, observers told the Guardian.<\/p>\n
Taylor\u2019s continued detention despite his extensive medical needs is \u201cyet another stark example of the cruelty of this administration\u201d, said Helen L Parsonage, the attorney who filed the petition.<\/p>\n
Brought to the US by his mother on a medical visa when he was a child, Taylor had 16 operations for his medical conditions. Now 46, he has lived in the US nearly his entire life and works as a barber. He got engaged only 10 days before Ice detained him in January \u2013 due to a burglary conviction from when he was a teenager and for which the state of Georgia pardoned him in 2010, according to Owings, who shared some of Taylor\u2019s paperwork with the Guardian.<\/p>\n
Taylor has a pending application for US residence \u2013 commonly known as a \u201cgreen card\u201d \u2013 but has not been released on bond while the federal government determines his immigration status. He says he has been subjected to multiple mishaps in detention, including the screws coming out of his prosthetic legs, causing him to fall and injure his hand; and, during different periods, not being able to charge the batteries in his prosthetic legs or get them calibrated, leading to other injuries.<\/p>\n
Concurrently, the Trump administration has dismantled the office for civil rights and civil liberties (CRCL) and the immigration detention ombudsman (Oido) \u2013 two federal offices that provided oversight for healthcare and other issues.<\/p>\n
Habeas corpus, a legal tool meant to challenge the legal basis for detention, \u201cpredates the United States and goes back to the English legal system\u201d, said C\u00e9sar Garc\u00eda Hern\u00e1ndez, a law professor at Ohio State University. It fundamentally means that a detained person has the right for a judge to rule on whether their detention is unlawful.<\/p>\n
Taylor\u2019s petition is important because it comes after the September decision, which \u201cvirtually eliminate[d] bond for people no matter how long they\u2019ve lived here and whether they have jobs and contribute to our nation\u201d, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe meaning of this case at this point in time is because it is a direct challenge to this administration\u2019s \u2026 recent attempt to expand detention authority,\u201d Garc\u00eda Hern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n
Immigration attorneys nationwide are pursuing the same strategy \u2013 but it requires a few steps.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost immigration lawyers have never seen the inside of a federal court,\u201d said Charles Kuck, an Atlanta immigration attorney of more than three decades. That\u2019s because immigration courts are a separate system from federal district courts.<\/p>\n
This is leading to training sessions for immigration attorneys on filing habeas claims being staged nationwide, so they can try to get tens of thousands of detainees released from detention while their cases are resolved.<\/p>\n
Since district courts are separate from immigration courts, immigration attorneys are also having to follow a process of admission into district courts, which then authorizes them to file habeas petitions. In Georgia and some other states, this can include traveling to the district court with jurisdiction over the area where the detention center is located and attending a ceremony.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re having to adapt,\u201d Owings said. \u201cWe\u2019re figuring out how to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several observers familiar with Taylor\u2019s case said he would never have been detained without bond for eight months during previous administrations, given his medical condition. \u201cThis case is an example of what happens when Ice is judge, jury and executioner,\u201d Owings said. \u201cNow, if you\u2019re coming in the door, there\u2019s no going out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In the months to come, she added, \u201cThere will be more Rodneys. There will be more claims from people treated the same \u2013 without medical care, without guardrails to review their situations, without the ability to be released.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rodney Taylor, a Liberia-born man who is a double amputee and is missing three fingers on one hand has filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court seeking release from Georgia\u2019s Stewart detention center, after being held there by Ice for eight months. \u201cWhat is at stake in this case \u2026 is one of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[12823,13303,5081,2466,2081,1541,2879,14294,10196,284],"class_list":{"0":"post-23704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-custody","9":"tag-customs","10":"tag-enforcement","11":"tag-ice","12":"tag-immigration","13":"tag-man","14":"tag-path","15":"tag-petition","16":"tag-provide","17":"tag-release"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}