ABA President Bay urges ICE to notify counsel when transferring detainees
In a letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ABA President William R. Bay called attention to a “concerning trend” involving transfers of detained people from the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego without the required notice to their attorneys (Image from Shutterstock)
In a letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ABA President William R. Bay called attention to a “concerning trend” involving transfers of detained people from the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego without the required notice to their attorneys.
In the Oct. 23 letter, Bay wrote that he was particularly concerned about recent transfers of National Qualified Representative Program respondents. Under this program, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review appoints counsel for unrepresented detainees who are found to be mentally incompetent to represent themselves in immigration proceedings.
Bay noted that the ABA’s Immigration Justice Project represents National Qualified Representative Program respondents. In the past month, two of them had been transferred to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. One of these clients had been granted a $3,500 bond and was working with the Immigration Justice Project to secure housing in San Diego.
In total, 11 Immigration Justice Project clients were transferred from the Otay Mesa Detention Center without their counsel of record receiving notice, Bay added. In some cases, their attorneys learned of the transfers from their sponsor, family members or ICE’s detainee locator system.
“The ABA urges strict adherence to the detainee transfer standards to ensure that immigrants and asylum-seekers in detention are not unreasonably disadvantaged by transfers, and that access to legal representation remains unhindered,” Bay wrote. “These standards were designed, in part, to facilitate greater pro bono representation for indigent detained immigrants and asylum-seekers.
“Without proper accommodations, transferring represented individuals to other facilities may undermine attorneys’ ability to provide full legal representation,” he added.
Bay said ICE’s detainee transfer standards mandate that attorneys be notified as soon as possible but no later than 24 hours after their client is transferred.
