Protesters outside the federal courthouse earlier this week. (Deadline Detroit photo)
A federal judge is pushing back against the Trump administration's aggressive anti-immigrant practices.
U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith on Wednesday issued an order to stop federal immigration agents from pressuring Iraqi immigrants into agreeing to be deported and giving up their legal rights to remain in the United States, reports Sarah Rahal of The Detroit News.
Goldsmith ordered the government to permit American Civil Liberties Union lawyers access to detainees, provide proper notice on when detainees need counsel and not to threaten detainees.
The order says that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and the Department of Homeland Security employees "shall not threaten prosecution, project or suggest how long they might remain in detention, projecting when or suggesting they will be sent to Iraq, and must inform detainees they can not be punished."
The ACLU filed a lawsuit in June 2017 to block the government from deporting more than 1,400 Iraqi nationals who were taken into custody to deport. More than 100 detainees were from Metro Detroit. About 130 detainees remain in custody, said Mariam Aukerman, an ACLU senior staff attorney, according to the News.
"They were threatened with punishment, told they would be deported or would stay in detention for years and that their only way out was to sign a deportation document," Aukerman said Wednesday. "They face grave danger if they return to Iraq, and to force them to go back to face that fate is appalling. We are very pleased with the judge's ruling and it's an important order because now they can not continue the abuse and coercion."
