Immigrants Rights Groups Celebrate the Hard-Fought Release of Two Haitian Families After 10 Months in Family Immigration Prison
Reading, Pennsylvania and San Diego, California — Aldea – The People’s Justice Center and Haitian Bridge Alliance celebrate the hard-fought release of two families from the Berks County Residential Center (“Berks”), who fled Haiti due to political persecution. The families, which include a two-year old son and three-year old daughter, were subjected to ten months of an intense legal battle just for the opportunity to undergo an asylum screening. One of the parents released today said, “I don’t have the words to even start to say what is in my heart, but today…is the greatest day for me, after the day I was born.”
The families were sent to Berks in March 2020, after a traumatic week in custody at the U.S.-Mexico border, where they were kept in unbearably cold temperatures and were not provided toothpaste or allowed to bathe. The children stopped eating and became so dehydrated they required IV fluids. According to Attorney Bridget Cambria from Aldea – The People’s Justice Center, who represented the families, “Within 24 hours after arriving at Berks, the parents were placed on a telephone and required to undergo an asylum screening, without an opportunity to consult with an attorney about their rights. They had no understanding of the purpose of the telephone interview or who was questioning them.” Ms. Cambria added, “As a result of that phone call, they were banned from asylum and detained for the next 10 months.”
“Haitian protection cases and Black immigrant cases were handled drastically differently than all other cases under the Trump Administration. We knew these families had credible asylum claims, we knew they fled for their lives because of political persecution, and yet the immigration system would not give them another interview to be screened for asylum or access to lawful asylum procedures,” said Ms. Cambria. “Our legal team, including Aldea, the law firm of Greenberg Traurig and Rapid Defense Network, filed numerous lawsuits challenging illegal procedures and improper standards of refugee law levied against these and other families, as well as four meritorious requests for new asylum fear interviews under proper asylum standards. Finally, the Asylum Office through their own discretion, and in turn doing the right thing to satisfy their duty as protection officers, agreed to grant new interviews to the families and screened them for credible fear. The families passed.”
Guerline Jozef, co-founder and Executive Director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, stated, “We are grateful that these young families will be united with their loved ones in New York and Florida. I can’t tell you how many times we cried with these families, who kept being denied the opportunity to tell their persecution stories, as their babies grew up in immigration prison,” said Ms. Jozef. “Without strong legal counsel and a large advocacy community with the Shut Down Berks Coalition who moved heaven and earth on behalf of these families, these families would have had no chance of receiving this positive outcome.” Ms. Jozef added, “Their plight demonstrates the injustices suffered by many Black immigrants in general and Haitian Immigrants in particular – biases of asylum officers, worse impacts from the conditions of detention, higher bonds, racism, anti-blackness, and lack of language access. Comprehensive immigration reform is needed now.”
