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AMERICAN EXILE Rapid Deportations That Bypass the Courtroom

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AMERICAN EXILE Rapid Deportations That Bypass the Courtroom AMERICAN EXILE Rapid Deportations That Bypass the Courtroom December 2014 AMERICANAt America’s Expense: EXILE RapidThe Mass DeportationsIncarceration of the ElderlyThat Bypass the Courtroom ©June 2014 2012 ACLU Foundation American Civil Liberties Union 125 Broad Street New York, NY 10004 www.aclu.org Cover image credit: Tim Gruber Cover, interior, and back photographs: Sam Frost Cover and interior images: Tijuana, Mexico, March 2014. Men standing on the beach look across the border to California as U.S. Border Patrol officers arrest two migrants. Back cover image: The U.S. fence separating California and Mexico, expanded and fortified in 2011 and jutting 30 feet into the Pacific Ocean. CONTENTS Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 2 Key Recommendations ................................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Methodology ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 9 I. Summary Deportation Procedures: An Introduction ..............................................................................................................10 A. Expedited Removal ................................................................................................................................................................15 B. Reinstatement of Removal ................................................................................................................................................19 C. Administrative Voluntary Departure/Voluntary Return ........................................................................................23 D. Administrative Removal Under INA § 283b ................................................................................................................26 E. Stipulated Orders of Removal...........................................................................................................................................29 II. Who Is Getting Deported Without a Hearing?...........................................................................................................................31 A. Asylum Seekers Returned to Danger ...........................................................................................................................32 1. Expedited Removal and the Impediments for Asylum Seekers ................................................................33 2. Language and Information Barriers ......................................................................................................................34 3. Failure to Refer Asylum Seekers to an Asylum Officer.................................................................................37 4. Asylum Seekers with Prior Removal Orders .....................................................................................................40 B. People Lawfully in the United States Who Are Deported Without a Hearing .............................................44 1. U.S. Citizens Deported Through Summary Procedures ...............................................................................44 a. U.S. Citizens with Mental Disabilities ..........................................................................................................48 b. U.S. Residents with Valid Status ....................................................................................................................50 2. Expedited Removal of Tourists and Business Visitors ..................................................................................54 C. Longtime Residents Removed Without a Hearing ..................................................................................................59 1. Deportations at the Border ........................................................................................................................................60 2. Apprehended and Deported in the Interior of the United States ..............................................................63 a. Voluntary Return....................................................................................................................................................63 b. Administrative Removal Under 238b............................................................................................................66 D. Children Arriving Alone .......................................................................................................................................................69 1. Legal Background ........................................................................................................................................................69 2. Accessing the Protections of the System ..........................................................................................................71 3. Mexican Children and the TVPRA .........................................................................................................................73 4. The TVPRA in Practice ...............................................................................................................................................73 III. After Deportation: The Aftermath of an Unfair Removal ...................................................................................................80 A. Erroneous Deportations and the Lack of Oversight ...............................................................................................80 B. Reinstatement of Removal ................................................................................................................................................83 C. Prosecution for Returning ..................................................................................................................................................87 D. American Families Living in the Shadows ..................................................................................................................94 IV. International Law and Restrictions on Summary Removals ............................................................................................97 A. Access to Justice and the Right to a Fair Hearing ..................................................................................................97 B. The Right to Apply for Asylum and Right to Protection from Persecution ..................................................99 C. Special Protections for Children .................................................................................................................................. 100 D. Limitations on Detention ................................................................................................................................................. 102 E. The Right to Family Unity ................................................................................................................................................. 102 Recommendations ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 104 Glossary of Terms ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 118 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................................................... 122 Endnotes ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 123 AMERICAN EXILE: Rapid Deportations That Bypass the Courtroom EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In FY 2013, 83 percent of ilda, a 35-year-old woman from Honduras, arrived in deportation orders came HTexas in 2013, fleeing gang threats and domestic violence that had just resulted in the miscarriage of her twin babies. from immigration officers, She was still bleeding when she was arrested by a Border Patrol officer with her two young surviving children. “I was not judges. caught crossing the river,” recalls Hilda: did not have a hearing, never saw an immigration judge, and It was 8 p.m. at night. They took me and my kids were deported through cursory administrative processes to a cell … They started to ask us to sign a lot where the same presiding immigration officer acted as of papers. The problem was I didn’t understand the prosecutor, judge, and jailor. Some of those expelled anything he was asking me. Since he saw that I without a hearing had lived in the United States for many didn’t understand, [the officer] would just write years, have U.S. citizen children, and were never afforded the and write and just tell me, “Sign.” … He would opportunity to say goodbye to relatives or call an attorney just put [the form] in front of me and say, “Sign, before being wrenched from their lives rooted in American next one, sign.” . I was afraid [to ask for help]. communities. Some of those deported were fleeing violence, Everyone there was afraid. [The officers]
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