Lawsuit Filed by ACLU of VA Argues that Caroline Detention Facility is Unlawfully Holding Immigrants
Suit was filed on behalf of four plaintiffs with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, a path to lawful permanent residency for minors who entered the country after being abused, neglected, or abandoned.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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The ACLU of Virginia has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of four young people who have been granted Special Immigrant Juvenile Status but are still being held in detention facilities.
One of the plaintiffs is being held in Caroline Detention Facility and Paul Perry, superintendent of the facility, is a respondent in the case, which was filed last week in U.S. Eastern District Court.
“Our clients are young people whose parents abused, neglected, or abandoned them,” said ACLU-VA Legal Director Eden Heilman in a press release. “A court ruled they cannot safely return to their home countries, that they have nowhere else to go, and that they have every legal right to be in the United States. How could ICE possibly justify picking up orphaned children and then warehousing them in a detention center?”
Special Immigrant Juvenile Status is a pathway to lawful permanent residency that was established by Congress in 1990. In order to obtain this status, a state juvenile court must decide that the minor is unable to live with one or both parents due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment, and that it would not be in the minor’s best interest to return to their country of origin.
Minors who have committed drug crimes or crimes of “moral turpitude” are not eligible for SIJ status. Once the minor has SIJ status, they can then apply for lawful permanent residency.
“While they are waiting for their lawful permanent residence status, SIJS recipients typically receive ‘deferred action,’ which is a promise by the government not to attempt to remove them absent some new justification,” the ACLU-VA petition states.
All four of the plaintiffs in the case either have SIJ status or have a pending application, according to the petition. All of them have lived in the U.S. for years, were initially apprehended by immigration officials within the country, were designated as an unaccompanied minors, were placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and were released to a sponsor.
The plaintiff who is being held at Caroline Detention Facility—which contracts with ICE to detain non-citizens—is a native of Honduras, was designated as an unaccompanied minor in March of 2023, and obtained SIJ status in August of 2024, according to the petition.
The other three plaintiffs are being held at Farmville Detention Facility.
The ACLU-VA contends that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now unlawfully treating these plaintiffs—and all minors with SIJ status—as “arriving noncitizens who are subject to mandatory detention, and denying them bond hearings before an immigration judge,” according to a press release. This is “despite clear protections granted to them not only through SIJS, but also by anti-trafficking laws, the Immigration Nationality Act, and the United States Constitution.”
Sophia Gregg, senior immigrants’ rights attorney for ACLU-VA, said the plaintiffs are “following the rules they’ve been given to obtain citizenship,” but, “Unfortunately, ICE is not.”
The lawsuit argues that all four plaintiffs “and a proposed class of others similarly situated” should be released from detention and are entitled to bond hearings.
Jojo LeBlanc, a communications associate with ACLU-VA, said that a court date has not yet been set.
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