Latest news with #ACLUofColorado
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What's known about detainees from Colorado who were sent to El Salvador
Tim Macdonald, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado, speaks to reporters outside the Alfred A. Arraj United States Courthouse in Denver on April 21, 2025. Macdonald represents plaintiffs who are suing the Trump administration over their potential deportation under the Alien Enemies Act. (Quentin Young/Colorado Newsline) Immigration advocates in Colorado say they have identified about 12 immigrants in Colorado whom they believe federal authorities have removed to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador. Some details of their cases are uncertain, because immigration authorities, both in court proceedings and through public communication, have largely refused to release information about enforcement activities. But lawyers and community groups working on behalf of the immigrants — through contact with family members, media coverage, videos from CECOT, and scant clues from federal sources — have constructed the best available profile of people who vanished from Colorado. As Colorado Newsline previously reported, Tim Macdonald, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado, in April first revealed in federal court in Denver that at least 11 people had been removed from Colorado to the brutal prison in El Salvador. The ACLU represents two Venezuelan nationals, as well as a larger class of immigrants, who are being held at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Aurora and fear deportation under the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th century wartime law invoked by President Donald Trump to hasten deportations. The Colorado case is one of several throughout the country that challenges the Trump administration's hyper-aggressive pursuit of mass deportations as unconstitutional, affording detainees little to no due process. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Attorney Laura Lunn, director of advocacy and litigation at Westminster-based Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, which has worked on the federal case of the Venezuelan detainees and others in Colorado, told Newsline this week that immigration advocates think there are 'about a dozen' people the U.S. removed from Colorado to CECOT under the Alien Enemies Act. 'In some instances, we were in touch with their loved ones, who said, 'We saw our loved one on the news, and he is in CECOT,'' Lunn said. Numerous images and videos have emerged from the prison since March 15, when American officials, in possible violation of a court order, flew 238 migrants from the U.S. to be incarcerated in El Salvador. The roughly dozen immigrants transferred from Colorado to CECOT are believed to have been on one of three March 15 flights, Lunn said. Newsline requested responses to a set of specific questions for this story from a spokesperson for ICE Denver. The spokesperson referred questions to a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, who did not respond. The Western region branch of the American Friends Service Committee helped to confirm, largely through interaction with family members, about six of the Colorado-to-CECOT detainees, Jennifer Piper, the region's program director, said. They are Venezuelan men roughly between 19 and 25 years old. There is no indication any of the roughly 12 individuals from Colorado were legal residents or citizens of the U.S., but they were removed from the country before they could present facts on their own behalf, Lunn noted. For some family members, the first indication a loved one had been transported to El Salvador was the release by CBS News of a list of detainees who were on the March 15 flights. So, you know, you're talking two months, more than 60 days that you have no idea if your loved one is alive, dead, in El Salvador, disappeared into the immigration system in Guantanamo. No idea. – Jennifer Piper, Western region director of the American Friends Service Committee One Colorado detainee's mother whom Piper works with spotted her son in a video from CECOT just this month. 'She finally was able to see her kid's face, when they went walking down the halls,' Piper said. 'So, you know, you're talking two months, more than 60 days that you have no idea if your loved one is alive, dead, in El Salvador, disappeared into the immigration system in Guantanamo. No idea.' Some details on at least three Colorado-to-El Salvador detainees have been reported through government and media sources. They include Jose Eduardo Moran-Garcia, Yohendry Jerez-Hernandez and Nixon Perez. Jerez-Hernandez and Perez appear on the CBS list. Sources for this story declined to give the names of other individuals they're working with. Colorado and Aurora became a focus of Trump's plan for mass deportations as he campaigned for reelection last year, including during a rally in Aurora in October. Local and federal authorities in recent months have undertaken several operations against immigrants on the Front Range. They include the September arrests of four men in connection with a shooting at an apartment on Nome Street in Aurora, a raid on a 'makeshift nightclub' in Adams County in January, a coordinated set of operations at residences in Denver and Aurora in February, and a raid on a 'makeshift nightclub' in Colorado Springs last month. At least some of the detainees sent from Colorado to CECOT were rounded up during these actions, Piper said, adding, 'Not a single person was convicted of a crime.' Trump administration officials often allege that some detainees in Colorado and elsewhere have ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. 'It's really important to understand that those ties have not been proven in any way,' Piper said. 'They haven't been able to provide any proof of that in any of the court documents where they're being sued.' Some of the removed immigrants faced criminal charges, but they were local, not federal, charges, often filed well after the individuals were initially detained, Piper said. 'No one gets to go to their final court date to argue their case' before removal, Piper said. Some detainees didn't even face local charges and were removed to El Salvador because federal officials said, 'Oh, we didn't like your tattoo,' she said. Lunn has appeared as a 'friend of the court' during hearings for some of the Colorado detainees believed to be at CECOT. Government attorneys have never acknowledged the detainees were sent to El Salvador, she said. 'I've been doing detained work for people in immigration proceedings now for about 15 years. It is unprecedented for somebody's case to be docketed and for ICE to show up to court and say, 'We don't know where this person is, and we're not at liberty to tell you where they might be,'' Lunn said. The cases are devoid of typical due process and documentation. 'It would be one thing if there was like a legal basis that the government could point to as to why somebody was placed on one of those planes, but because they provided them no prior notice, because people were taken without the opportunity to review any allegations against them, that means that there really is no paper trail of what allegations existed,' Lunn said. 'We don't even know what the government supposedly alleged in order to invoke the (Alien Enemies Act) against people.' She rejects the term 'deportation' to describe these cases. 'It's not a deportation, because they don't have a deportation order,' Lunn said. 'It's lawlessness … People were disappeared.' Earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte Sweeney in Denver issued a preliminary injunction that indefinitely blocks the Trump administration from removing detainees in Colorado under the Alien Enemies Act while the case is pending. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Federal judge in Denver to rule on restraining order in Alien Enemies Act case
Tim Macdonald, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado, speaks to reporters outside the Alfred A. Arraj United States Courthouse in Denver on Monday. Macdonald represents plaintiffs who are suing the Trump administration over their potential deportation under the Alien Enemies Act. (Quentin Young/Colorado Newsline) A federal judge in Denver will soon decide whether to issue a temporary restraining order that would bar the Trump administration from removing from Colorado people who could be deported under the Alien Enemies Act. At least 11 people have already been deported from Colorado to a brutal prison in El Salvador, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the case said Monday. The case was brought as a habeas corpus petition by two Venezuelan nationals held at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Aurora. They sued President Donald Trump and other federal officials earlier this month, challenging the government's authority to remove them from Colorado. Represented by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, the plaintiffs also ask U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney to declare Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act unlawful, and they ask the court to certify the lawsuit as a class action, so that it would cover many other immigrants who are in custody in Colorado and could be removed from the country to the CECOT prison in El Salvador, where the Trump administration has already sent scores of detainees. Sweeney heard arguments in the case Monday morning and said she would issue a ruling within 24 hours. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Tim Macdonald, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado, represented the plaintiffs during the hearing. He pointed to recent government behavior in Texas and elsewhere, as well as an emergency ruling early Saturday by the U.S. Supreme Court, as indications that swift protections against removal for his clients were necessary. He said that despite a Supreme Court ruling earlier this month that immigrants subject to Alien Enemies Act removal must be given 'reasonable notice' to challenge their deportation in court, the Trump administration has engaged in a game of 'whack-a-mole' by moving immigrants out of districts where deportations were temporarily barred to a facility in north Texas, where deportations were not barred. Macdonald said the Trump administration has interpreted 'reasonable notice' in a way that gives no realistic opportunity for detainees to challenge their removal. The Supreme Court in a rare early morning ruling Saturday halted deportations in the north Texas district, after it appeared authorities at the detention facility there were preparing detainees for removal. Detainees in Colorado face a similar risk without the protection of a temporary restraining order, Macdonald argued. 'This has life or death consequences,' he said. Lawyers for the Trump administration argued that Sweeney lacks jurisdiction to hear the case, because federal authorities have determined so far that the plaintiffs are not subject to deportation under the Aliens Enemies Act. The plaintiffs argue, however, that their status could change, and federal authorities in other cases have acted within hours to deport immigrants under the act and have failed to provide detainees due process. Macdonald told reporters after the hearing that at least 11 people who were detained in Aurora have already been removed to the prison in El Salvador. The prison, which is alleged to keep detainees in inhumane conditions, is where U.S. authorities mistakenly sent Maryland resident Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. Macdonald estimates that more than 100 people detained in Aurora would qualify as members of the class that's proposed in the lawsuit. Trump proclaimed on March 15 that all Venezuelans who are not permanent U.S. residents, are 14 years or older, and are members of the gang Tren de Aragua, or TdA, can be removed from the U.S. under the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that has been invoked on only three previous occasions and only during war. The Trump administration says 137 people have been deported under the Alien Enemies Act. Plaintiffs in the Colorado case are identified by their initials, D.B.U. and R.M.M. They both deny being members of TdA. D.B.U. is a 32-year-old asylum seeker who has lived in Colorado with his wife and two children. R.M.M. is also a Colorado resident who is seeking asylum. He says that he fled Venezuela to escape TdA, which killed his wife's father and uncle and which he fears will kill him and his wife and children. Last week, Sweeney issued an initial order that halted Alien Enemies Act deportations in Colorado. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Yahoo
ACLU sues Aurora landlord for threatening tenants with immigration enforcement
DENVER (KDVR) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado filed a lawsuit Tuesday against an Aurora landlord accused of repeatedly threatening to report Venezuelan tenants to immigration authorities. The ACLU said the couple has pending asylum applications in the U.S. The organization is arguing to the court that the 'landlord's actions were an unlawful attempt to force the family to vacate their home without due process.' DEA takes 3 suspects with possible ties to a Mexican drug cartel into custody According to the complaint, the couple moved into the apartment in early October 2024 with their two sons and agreed to pay $1,800 in rent each month under a lease. The ACLU of Colorado alleged in the lawsuit that friction between the tenants and landlord began in November 2024 when the couple 'incurred unexpected medical expenses that led them to fall behind on rent.' The complaint states that on Dec. 4, 2024, one of the adult residents and one of the juveniles came home to find the locks on the apartment were changed with no prior notice or valid court order for possession of property. 'That night, Mr. Doe and the couple's fifteen-year-old son were forced to sleep in their car overnight in the winter cold. The next day, they were able to access the Apartment through a window,' the complaint states. The couple filed the lawsuit through attorneys under pseudonyms. The lawsuit says the family contacted the landlord and were told they 'could not do anything about it because they are not 'from here' are Venezuelan, and have no rights.' The ACLU alleged this was an intimidation and coercion tactic to stop the tenants from asserting their rights. This incident was resolved after the family made a $1,000 payment, and then a $300 payment a week after the first payment. Management allegedly responded by putting a key in the family's mailbox, allowing them full access to the apartment. A second incident was described in the lawsuit dating to Jan. 15. The complaint states that the landlord knocked on the family's door, 'shoved some papers through the door and misleadingly told Plaintiffs (the family) they had 'ten days to move out.'' DEA takes suspected Venezuelan gang member into custody in Denver area On Jan. 24, a landlord came to the apartment again. The lawsuit says the man who visited the apartment 'slammed' the front door back, and could have broken the nose of the resident who answered the door. The lawsuit also says the landlord had a handwritten paper in his hand, allegedly showing what the family owed the management company, but allegedly the landlord did not show the paper to the family. Instead, the landlord 'raised his voice,' speaking in 'broken Spanish' about how they owed him money, and if they didn't pay they would be thrown out on the street. He allegedly told them they only had a few hours to move out, or he would call immigration. One of the adults told the landlord that the demand to leave within hours was illegal, and the landlord repeated his immigration threats, later telling them 'Migra today.' FOX31 called a number associated with the company named in the lawsuit, PHS Rent LLC., and was told they were not offering comment on the lawsuit before the woman who answered hung up the line. The family is seeking damages for harm caused by the landlords, and restraining orders to prevent the landlords from repeating these actions on other families. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
