Nearly 100 attorneys from all across New England today heeded a call to help detained immigrants secure new, fair bond hearings. The lawyers joined the ACLU of Massachusetts, PAIR Project, and the New England chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) for a training that could result in hundreds of new, fair immigration bond hearings—and ultimately the release of immigrants detained throughout New England.
The training, hosted by the law firm Mintz and co-sponsored by the PAIR Project and AILA, follows a recent federal court decision in the ACLU’s class action lawsuit, Pereira Brito v. Barr. Last month, a federal judge ruled that the government’s practice of detaining certain immigrants by default violates due process. The ruling holds that a New England class of immigrants are entitled to bond hearings at which the government bears the burden of justifying an immigrant’s detention, and at which the immigration court must consider conditions of release and the immigrant’s ability to pay when setting a bond amount. The court’s decision takes effect today.
Participating attorneys will now prepare to file hundreds of individual habeas petitions to establish that detained people had improper bond hearings and are entitled to a new detention determination under the standards required by the Pereira Brito decision. Referrals of pro bono counsel to class members are already in progress, and will accelerate after January 3, when the government is required to identify the entire detained class.
For more information about Pereira Brito v. Barr, go to: https://www.aclum.org/en/cases/pereira-brito-v-barr
