Class-action suit: Wrong to put kids into immigration court with no lawyers to help

*Immigration proceedings provide no established right to legal counsel. When an undocumented child goes before a judge, Homeland Security has a lawyer arguing for deportation but the child stands alone. Thanks to Susana Hayward for suggesting this story. VL

By Susan Ferriss, The Center for Public Integrity

A coalition of civil rights groups filed a nationwide class-action suit Wednesday alleging that putting children into immigration court without counsel violates both constitutional due-process rights and immigration law.

The plaintiffs in the suit filed in Seattle are eight children aged 10 to 17 who have resided in the United States for various lengths of time and are scheduled to appear in court, unrepresented, for deportation proceedings in the near future.

Two of the minors, 13-year-old and 15-year-old Seattle siblings, saw their father gunned down by gangsters who objected to the father’s anti-gang rehabilitation center in El Salvador, according to the suit.

Click HERE to read the full story.

[Photo by CBP Photography/Flickr]

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