Thursday, 4:30 PM
Lawyer to fight deportations
By Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff
A lawyer for immigrants arrested in a New Bedford factory raid said he will ask the country’s top immigration judge Tuesday morning to halt the deportations of 123 detainees and reopen their cases.
Harvey Kaplan said Monday night that he planned to file a motion with Chief US Immigration Judge David Neal that would allow lawyers to question immigrants who the government said had waived their right to appeal deportation orders.
"The government is saying they chose to waive their rights, and the question is how did they choose that option," Kaplan said.
Defense lawyers received electronic notice of the government’s intent to deport the detainees at 5 p.m. Friday, Kaplan said, and have not been provided with subsequent access to the immigrants. The detainees, about one-third of the 361 immigrants arrested March 6 at a leather goods factory, are being held in Massachusetts and two locations in Texas.
Paula Grenier, a spokeswoman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Monday evening that she did not believe any of the 123 detainees had been deported yet.
However, a government notice filed Friday at US District Court in Boston said travel documents had been obtained for 57 detainees who waived their appeals in deportation cases begun after the raid. Removals of an additional 66 immigrants, who had been ordered deported before the raid, "are in progress," the notice said.
"We’re continuing to try to get these cases stopped, so these people can get legal representation," Kaplan said. "We think they gave up. You were swept from your family, and finally you go to an immigration court and say, 'I give up.'"
