Federal judge stops immigrant detainees from being transferred out of Nevada

A federal judge temporarily blocked 25 immigrant detainees from being transferred out of state as the ACLU of Nevada determines whether they received bond hearings prior to being detained. 

Immigration and civil rights attorneys in Nevada and across the country have been suing the Trump administration for standing up immigration policies they argue deny people due process and violate federal law. 

In March, U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware sided with the ACLU of Nevada and UNLV’s Immigration Clinic and ruled a recent federal policy that called for mandatory detention for all immigrants facing deportation and denied them bail violated the law.

Last week, Boulware ordered federal officials to pause transferring 25 detainees out of state – into another court’s jurisdiction – while attorneys reviewed their court cases. 

“These detainees remain entitled to bond hearings under the court’s ruling, regardless of where they are transferred,” Athar Haseebullah, the executive director for the ACLU of Nevada, said in a statement Tuesday, adding that when the organization learned that detainees “were scheduled for transfer out of Nevada, we were not going to simply sit back and hope the government would properly enforce the court’s ruling on its own.”

ICE arrests skyrocketed in Nevada last year

The number of people arrested in immigration enforcement and removal operations have skyrocketed in Nevada during Trump’s second term. 

An analysis of data collected by the Deportation Data Project showed that more than 40% of those arrested had no criminal convictions or records.

Trump has pursued numerous avenues to carry out his mass deportation agenda, including ending a long-standing federal policy that allowed undocumented individuals arrested and detained inside the U.S. by immigration enforcement to seek release on bond.

The ACLU and the UNLV Immigration Clinic filed a class action lawsuit in November arguing the Department of Homeland Security’s policy deprived immigrants facing deportation the opportunity for bail.

Immigration attorneys warned the policy change would deprive countless immigrants of due process and didn’t take into account how long they’d been in the country.

“The new ICE detention policies target many long-standing residents of our community, people who work and have raised families in Las Vegas and in neighboring states, and who are then detained in Southern Nevada,” said Michael Kagan, the director of UNLV’s immigration clinic, said in a statement at the time. “Our staff and student attorneys have been encountering countless people who, under the law and under consistent government policy until a few weeks ago, would have been released.”

The court ruled in their favor, with Boulware agreeing with the ACLU that the DHS policy raised Fourth Amendment concerns.

The class action suit was initially filed on behalf of two immigrants who were detained and denied bond hearings. But the ruling, Haseebullah argued, could have a significant impact on countless others who had previously been denied hearings. 

The civil liberties organization has since filed habeas petitions on behalf of detainees they identified as potential class members entitled to bond hearings under.

“The court’s order on this has helped preserve the integrity of our legal system in an era where due process rights are being trampled upon,” Haseebullah said.