Connecticut ping!
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
Posted on 03/10/2007 11:58:13 AM PST by Graybeard58
NEW HAVEN Immigrant rights advocates are accusing state probation officials of breaking the law by working with federal authorities to arrest illegal immigrants.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut and other advocacy groups call the practice a "shameful subversion" of the purpose of probation to rehabilitate. They say it makes it less likely that people who are not citizens will comply with or accept plea deals involving probation.
"We think that it's inhumane," said Renee Redman, legal director of the ACLU of Connecticut.
The ACLU and the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic of Yale Law School sent a letter to state judicial officials Wednesday demanding that probation officers stop interrogating defendants on probation about their immigration status and facilitating arrests for immigration violations.
They contend probation officers lack the authority to gather such information and that the practice violates due process rights and a state privacy law.
The Judicial Branch needs time to review the letter before commenting, a spokeswoman said.
Several immigrants have found immigration agents waiting to arrest them when they appeared for meetings with their probation officers, according to the ACLU. The immigrants were on probation for drunken driving, an offense for which an immigrant cannot be deported, supporters said.
The arrests took place in recent months in Danbury, where local officials have cracked down on what they say is a wave of illegal immigration overwhelming the Fairfield County city. The arrests have sparked fear in the community and worries that immigrants will be reluctant to seek medical attention or report domestic violence, advocates say.
One of the men arrested has a wife and infant, supporters said. Most of the immigrants are imprisoned in other states, far from their families and lawyers.
Immigration officials and advocates disagree on the number of arrests.
The ACLU says it discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request that state court officials have a policy of collaboration with the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Under a policy initially adopted in 2003, probation officers are told to assist ICE in "identifying, locating and facilitating the arrest of" immigrant probationers, the ACLU says.
Under state law, courts are prohibited from requiring defendants to disclose their immigration status, Redman said.
Telephone messages were left Thursday for Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton and ICE officials.
Looks like The ACLU and their fellow-travelers have found another
vein of gold to mine.
They'll surely be working this up into "civil rights" lawsuits and get
themselves a sweet payoff from the US Treasury.
As usual, the US taxpayer will pay the tab for these jerk lawyers.
Then they (criminal immigrants) can stay in jail and then be deported after their sentences are completed.
I didn't know that illegals had rights.
ACLU should be wiped off the planet. They are nothing but "legalized thugs". ANYONE who supports the right of grown perverted men to have sex with little boys SHOULD BE DEMOLISHED. They make me sick! However, just like Sodom and Gemorrah, they too will be destroyed.
I thought they were going to argue that illegals hadn't been allowed to vote in the last election (insuring a Lieberman loss.)
What an absurd sentence! Every citizen [emphasis on "citizen"] has an obligation to report violations of the law...and illegal aliens are not a protected class.
Every part of it. The whole thing.
When will the congress do something about these folks who want to wreck the USA.
Anyone who thinks they have a right to what we've earned is off their collective rocker. GET OUT and take the aclu with you. Don't let that big "door" hit you in the padded component of your hind parts.
The ONLY right illegal immigrants have, is the right to leave the country unmolested....
Period.
Semper Fi
They are NOT immigrants if here illegally. Therefore, they have no rights to violate.
ping
Illegals have no rights in this country except the right to be deported.
The ACLU is just another point of failure of the former GOP Majority. Blackbird.
Connecticut ping!
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
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