Seattle lawyers sue DHS to stop deportation of detained immigrants to ‘third countries’

Lawyers from Seattle and others around the country filed a lawsuit this week against the Department of Homeland Security over a recent practice of the agency to deport people who don’t have legal status in the U.S. to “third countries.”

The emergency class action lawsuit focused on four immigrants who have final deportation orders and who are expected to be flown to countries that were never considered during their initial deportation proceedings.

The lawsuit questions the lack of due process for the immigrants, pointing out that they were not given the time in front of a judge to ask to be sent somewhere else over safety concerns.

Over the past several weeks, immigrants have been deported to places like Mexico, Panama, El Salvador, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, instead of their home country, without an immigration court proceeding.

A federal court has paused deportation flights enacted by the Trump administration under the Aliens Enemy Act of 1798 in connection with a different lawsuit.

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Days before his deportation this week, Bryan Rivero-Ramirez was told he was going to either México, Guantanamo Bay, or El Salvador. Rivero-Ramirez is from Venezuela. A public records search shows he has no criminal record.

“I don’t have a reason for any of the countries that they’re going to send me,” he said in Spanish on Friday.

Until Monday, Venezuela did not take deportation flights from the U.S. The Miami Herald reports that a plane with 178 Venezuelan migrants landed in Caracas Friday morning.

Earlier this year, another man from Venezuela living in Western Washington was arrested and sent to Guantanamo Bay.

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Neither man is currently part of the lawsuit, but both could benefit if it reaches class action status.

Lawyers from the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, Human Rights First, and the National Immigration Litigation Alliance are representing immigrants from Cuba, Honduras, Ecuador, and Guatemala, who are being detained by ICE, have standing deportation orders, and have fears of being deported to their designated "third countries."

Only one of those people has actually been deported. Known in court records as O.C.G., he was sent to Mexico where lawyers said he was previously targeted and raped. Lawyers said O.C.G. is now living in hiding in Guatemala.

Lawyers are also pushing back on how the Department of Homeland Security plans to arrest and deport people who have lost legal protections to be in the U.S — like many of the immigrants from Venezuela that have arrived in the Seattle area.

They point to a recent Reuters article that focused on an internal email from the Department of Homeland Security.

That email lays out plans for federal agents to arrest and deport people who have been processed out of an immigration detention center, have lost legal protections to be in the U.S., and have yet to file for an asylum application or any other form of legal status in the U.S.

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Lawyers from the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project allege this allows federal agents to ignore any current court proceedings while federal agencies seek to speed up deportations.

“We are demanding that DHS operate within the law,” said Matt Adams, legal director for NWIRP in a press release. “DHS may not simply ignore the orders issued by the immigration court providing protection and remove our clients and proposed class members to another country without first providing an opportunity to return to court if necessary.”

More recently, protections from deportation for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have been terminated. Department of Homeland Security officials are asking for people who haven’t received some form of legal status from those countries to self-deport by April 28.

People from Venezuela seeking asylum or other forms of legal status in the U.S. will also lose a secondary form of legal protections called Temporary Protected Status as of April 8.

People from Venezuela are one of the top five immigrant groups who have applied for legal and housing help from Washington state immigrant programs.

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For his part, Rivero-Ramirez struggled to find legal help for the last year, and was consistently turned away by lawyers, he said. During that time he found help getting a shelter from a local church pastor. He also volunteered with mutual aid organizations helping other immigrants and asylum seekers as they navigated their own immigration cases.

Finding no options for himself, he tried to immigrate to Canada, but was turned away at the border, and right into the hands of U.S. Border Patrol. That might disqualify him from benefiting from the lawsuit if the class action suit is successful.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to fix my papers,” he said, “It became difficult for me and I wasn’t able to work it out. So, I thought in Canada I could find that opportunity.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Rivero-Ramirez is still at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma.

As the federal government seeks to deport as many people as possible, especially people admitted under the Biden administration, the DHS email says the parole process under Biden, created a catch-and-release situation with safety risks and undermined national authority.

A memo from the Department of Homeland Security announcing plans to terminate the parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, echoed those sentiments.

“These programs do not serve a significant public benefit, are not necessary to reduce levels of illegal immigration, did not sufficiently mitigate the domestic effects of illegal immigration, are not serving their intended purposes, and are inconsistent with the Administration's foreign policy goals,” the memo states.