Washington – The federal immigration authorities have been trying to quickly expel an Arizona woman who has lived in the United States for almost 30 years, in what her lawyers call the first test of a federal law, according to which long-standing immigrants cannot be withdrawn until they had the opportunity to plead their case before a judge.
The lawyers of Mirta Amarilis Co Tupul took legal action on Saturday evening before the American district court in Arizona and are looking for an emergency stop for the imminent deportation of Co Tupul to Guatemala while the case takes place in court.
“Only this administration would go so far,” said Co Tupul’s main lawyer, Chris Godshall-Bennet, “because at the heart of it is a disjective lack of respect for the rule of law.”
Godshall-Bennet said that the government’s decision against Co Tupul is only the last of the many illegal actions attempted by the Trump administration in its efforts to withdraw as many immigrants as possible. If the expulsion of Co Tupul is authorized to proceed, said its defenders, it could have great implications for millions of other immigrants who have lived in the United States for many years and are at risk of expulsion.
The trial was filed against the Secretary of Internal Security, Kristi Noem, American. General Pam Bondi, director of the application of the interim immigration and customs forces, Todd Lyons and the director of the Phoenix ice office, John Cantu. The Ministry of Internal Security did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Federal law since 1996 allows the government to place immigrants in an accelerated procedure if they live in the United States for less than two years. The Trump administration seems to use this law beyond its limits.
“They will start to go around, seize people who have been here for decades and throw them without audiences from the immigration court,” said Eric Lee, another Co Tupul lawyer.
Co Tupul lawyers do not deny that it lacks legal status. The problem, they say, is the amount of regular procedure that it should receive.
Co Tupul, 38, entered the United States around 1996. She is a single mother of three American citizens, aged 8, 16 and 18, and lives in Phoenix.
She led to work in a laundromat on July 22 when an officer bearing a green uniform – supposed to be a customs agent and the protection of American borders – arrested her and quickly asked questions about her immigration status. When Co Tupul refused to answer, the agent held him as he called ICE, who transported him to the Eloyer detention center about 65 miles southeast of Phoenix.
Three days later, his lawyer Mindy Butler-Christensen called the CO Tupul expulsion manager, who explained that his client had been placed in an accelerated procedure and would be removed in one to three weeks.
“I asked the expulsion agent to share with me why she would be placed in accelerated referral,” wrote Butler-Christensen in a statement. “He told me that it was a” new policy “that the ice would implement with immigrants who came from” their first contact with the ice “.”
He refused to provide policy documentation, she said.
As part of the regular expulsion procedure, immigrants have the right to plead their case before an immigration judge, with the right to appeal. Due to the important rear courts, this process can be removed for years.
Under the accelerated withdrawal, the Immigration Court process is bypassed and immigrants cannot appeal, although they are entitled to asylum screening.
Initially, the faster process has only been applied to immigrants who arrived at entrance ports, such as airports. In the mid -2000s, he had extended to those who entered the sea or the land illegally and were captured by border agents within two weeks of their arrival.
The use of accelerated kidnapping was extended again in June 2020, in the middle of the COVVI-19 pandemic to those present in the United States for less than two years.
In January, the Trump administration announced that the government would now request an accelerated expulsion for arrested those not only at less than 100 miles from the border, but to those arrested anywhere in the United States, politics was still applied only to people in the United States for less than two years.
In the opinion of the Federal Register, announcing the change, the interior security secretary, Benjamine Huffman, wrote that it “restores the scope of accelerated retirement to the measure authorized by the Congress”.
“First, they have expanded the geographic area, and now they seem to contest the two years,” said Godshall-Bennet.
Co Tupul’s brother brought together a large collection of documents, including 16 affidavits signed by close friends and family files and vaccines dating back to July 1996, proving that she has lived in the United States for decades, that she has no criminal history and that she is an honest member of her community.
According to emails examined by Times, Butler-Christensen sent evidence to the staff of the Eloy’s detention center and to Cantu, the regional director of the ICE regional office, saying that the CO Tupul should be placed immediately in the regular expulsion procedure.
The answer occurred on July 29 in an e-mail of a deportation agent who said: “The case was revised and it will remain in an accelerated procedure”.
During a call the next day, a supervisory detention and expulsion agent asked Butler-Christensen why she insists that the CO Tupul is placed in regular procedures, saying: “What is the difference?” According to his declaration.
“He told me that during the arrest, she refused to disclose the officers how long she had lived here,” wrote Butler-Christensen.
She added: “I replied that according to law, she does not have to share this information and that I, as a lawyer, had provided many evidence [ICE] Regarding how long she had resided in Arizona. »»
The officer did not move.
Another ice official confirmed what this officer had suggested – that the Co Tupul was placed in an accelerated dismissal procedure because she had refused to share his immigration status with the officer who arrested him.
“During the administrative arrest of your client, she invoked her right not to make a declaration,” the manager wrote in an e-mail at Butler-Christensen. “Based on this, the officers treated it as an accelerated dismissal.”
The eldest son of Co Tupul, Ricardo Ruiz, said that his mother had prepared him for the possibility that she was detained. She frequently looked at the news and was afraid that the reported ice raids finally reach her door.
In short calls from the detention center, Ruiz said that she had told her to watch her brothers and stay focused on his own school work in the university.
Ruiz works at Walmart and divides invoices with his mother. Without his help, he said he quickly felt the pressure to keep their family afloat. Ruiz has described co -tupul as a dedicated and hardworking woman who has raised her children to be good citizens who respect the law.
He said it is unfair that immigration officials do not respect the law themselves.
“I just don’t think she deserves it,” he said. “No one does it.”
On Monday, the youngest sons of Co Tupul began their first day of the new school year. For the first time, it was Ruiz depositing them instead of their mother.
