Phoenix, AZ – On Monday, June 29, the District Court of Arizona granted a petition for habeas corpus on behalf of nine petitioners who had been detained for between six months and a year after winning protection in immigration court. All petitioners had been granted relief under the Convention Against Torture or Withholding of Removal but remained detained while the government attempted to effectuate third country removals.
In reaction to the decision, Laura Belous, a Managing Attorney on the Florence Project’s Advocacy Team, said:
“This decision highlights several harmful government policies impacting immigrants right now, including the prolonged detention of people who have been granted protection and the ongoing threat of third country removals. All nine of the people on whose behalf this petition was filed were granted some form of protection from deportation to their home countries after immigration judges found that they would likely be subjected to persecution or torture. They should have been released. Instead, the government kept them languishing in immigration detention and, in some cases, subjected them to traumatic transfers under threat of imminent removal. In two cases, without emergency intervention from the court, they would have been removed to third countries where they have no connections and where they feared harm. This decision grants them the liberty they should have had months ago.”
The petition was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona by the Florence Project and a team of attorneys from Osborn Maledon. The full, redacted decision can be found here.