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Keywords

Immigration and Naturalization Sevice, Orantes-Hernandez v. Smith

Abstract

The evidence against the Immigration and Naturalization Service was clear. "The agent grabbed me by the arm and twisted it behind my back. He threw me against the van and held me by the arms while a second agent cook out his revolver and struck me very hard in the face, twice. I began to bleed profusely from the nose and mouth," recalled plaintiff Crosby Orantes Hernandez. "He told me that I would be placed in a cell with men, leaving me with the impression that I would be sexually molested," testified fellow plaintiff Dora Elia Estrada. Jose Sanchez Flores also added his own personal experience: "We are not given any clothing while in the camp, and we are subject to being punished without a prior hearing for little or no reason .... I was never given a hearing regarding whether I should be punished so severely for such minor acts." The United States of America's Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had no defense against accounts of violence such as these that the INS had perpetrated on Central American refugees. In the 1982 case Orantes-Hernandez v. Smith, cited above, a United States district court ruled that the INS had systematically violated the rights of detained Salvadoran refugees. Among other things, the court found evidence that the INS showed "little or no regard for the procedural or substantive rights of aliens under United States immigration law" and that detainees in immigrant prisons had been lied to regarding the process to obtain political asylum, denied access to legal representation and information, and punished excessively through solitary confinement and physical violence. The resulting injunction imposed several stipulations on the INS, requiring that federal immigration detention centers "shall not employ threats, misrepresentation, subterfuge or other forms of coercion, ... inform the class member of the existence of his or her right to apply for political asylum, ... not advise, encourage, or persuade the class member to change his or her decision [to seek asylum]," or deny legal representation to Salvadoran refugees and prisoners.

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