On Tuesday, attorneys who represented two immigrant minors reunited with their parents in the state of Connecticut said that they hoped the cases would serve as models for future lawsuits by other immigrant families separated after illegally crossing the US-Mexico border as a result of the zero-tolerance immigration policy adopted by the Trump administration.
Governor Dannel P Malloy joined the team of lawyers from Yale Law School’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, and Connecticut Legal Services on Monday, to laud the reunification of the immigrant families following a two-week legal battle. Malloy said state officials were quickly convinced that Connecticut was the correct state in which to take legal action following the reporting of the detainment of the immigrant children.
The Governor claims that the office responsible for the processing of immigrant refugee cases on the US border has been deliberately understaffed and often closed to undermine the attempts by immigrant families to navigate the process successfully. Muneer Ahmad, a professor at Yale Law School, says the attorneys think they were able to achieve success due to the collaboration on the two federal lawsuits and suggested that the process is replicated in other areas of the US.
The immigrant families were reunited several days after the US District Court Judge, Victor A Bolden, ruled the separations to be unconstitutional. The parents must remain in New England and attend regular check-ins with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.