Trump Loses Another Court Battle Against Undocumented Immigrants

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On the same day that Democratic lawmakers caught photos, videos, and testimony from undocumented immigrants detained in horrifying conditions, a federal judge ruled on Attorney General William Barr’s order that immigrants should be denied bail hearings and held indefinitely in those centers while asylum claims are processed.

Some of those immigrants would be forced to wait months for those claims to process. The heart-wrenching photo of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter Valeria, who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande into Texas after waiting eight months for asylum, made national headlines of the protracted wait for asylum under Trump’s policy.

CNN reports that:

‘A federal judge in Seattle on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration policy denying bond hearings to asylum seekers.’

The conditions in migrant detention centers also made headlines on Tuesday, as detainees reported to lawmakers that they are sick, hungry, and being held in overcrowded spaces without proper water or care. Waiting even one week in these centers is unimaginably horrifying; eight months is torture.

‘US District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled that people who are detained after entering the US to seek protection are entitled to bond hearings and the chance to be released from custody under the Constitution.’

While Republicans demand more money to expand these centers and continue to hold migrants for longer periods of time, corporations who own these private detention facilities are raking in the cash. At a rate of $775 per person per day for eight months, those corporate owners are receiving around $186,000 per person for an eight-month stay. With around 15,000 people detained in private detention centers in Texas alone, that’s around $29.5 billion in profits.

‘Attorney General William Barr in April announced a policy that some asylum seekers who have established credible fear and are subject to deportation cannot be released on bond by immigration judges — a major reversal from a prior ruling that could lead to immigrants being held indefinitely.’

Featured image via Flickr by Office of Public Affairs under a Creative Commons license