BOSTON (AP) – A Massachusetts judge issued a temporary restraining order on Friday barring federal officials from deporting a large bloc of illegal immigrants snared in a New Bedford factory raid last month and now being held at Texas detention centers.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns granted the emergency request from lawyers for the detained immigrants, who argued that about 110 of 360 workers arrested may have agreed to waive an appeal of their deportation order under duress or with improper translators.
The restraining order lasts for 10 days and does not apply to detainees that already had been ordered deported before they were arrested in the March 6 raid at the Michael Bianco Inc. factory that makes equipment and apparel for the U.S. military. Attorneys for the detainees argue that federal immigration officials tried to hurry the deportation process and separate the former Massachusetts workers from their lawyers and families by taking many of them to holding centers in Port Isabel, near Harlingen, Texas, and to El Paso, in some cases hours after the raid.
Bernard J. Bonn III, an attorney for the detainees, said the judge may be disenchanted by the government’s haste in ordering the mostly indigenous Central American factory workers to leave the country.
“I think he was troubled by the government not being more flexible in this,” Bonn said.
At the emergency hearing Friday, Mark Grady, an assistant U.S. attorney, argued that Massachusetts had limited bed space to hold detained immigrants.
and their removal was not meant to manipulate the process of deportation.
“Instead of those in New Bedford, you’d simply have the next 250 aliens in Massachusetts shipped to Texas,” Grady said.
Stearns’ order also requires the government to turn over a list of all names and locations of immigrants held outside of Massachusetts who have voluntarily agreed to deportation. The ruling also requires the government to allow lawyers to meet with those detainees to make sure they fully understand their rights.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have continually said they have not denied legal counsel to any of the detainees. An ICE official was not immediately reached for comment on the judge’s order.
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