Over the last six years, at least 1715 people were targeted for deportation by immigration agents despite presenting testimony, paperwork, or other evidence to immigration judges that proved they held US citizenship. This is according to new immigration case data, which litigation has forced the US government to release.
Over a third of those affected eventually gained freedom, but many were unable to gain legal aid because detained immigrants do not have the right to appoint counsel enjoyed by criminal defendants. Hundreds had to spend months locked in detention centers owned by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as revealed by the information on cases closed between January 2011 and June 2017 in immigration courts.
The Deportation Research Clinic of Northwestern University gave the records to the Houston Chronicle, having obtained them from the Executive Office for Immigration Review in the Department of Justice. The head of the clinic, Professor Jackie Stevens, has helped lawyers to research the cases of over 150 people who were citizens or had citizenship claims, forced to fight to avoid deportation in Texas and several other states.
Stevens says that, with the number of detentions and deportations increasing under the policies of the Trump administration, it is inevitable that more American citizens will find themselves wrongfully arrested. She adds that the immigration court data is a small sample of a larger problem, claiming that up to 4000 people may have been wrongly targeted.