By: Monica Andrade, Skadden Fellow, and Bonsitu Kitaba-Gaviglio, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Michigan

“What did we do to deserve this?”

“If they’re being deported, why are they still in detention?  And how long will they be there?”

These are just some of the questions haunting hundreds of Iraqi families, whose loved ones have been held in immigration detention for months. Starting in June, Immigration and Customs Enforcement began conducting raids on Iraqi nationals with final orders of removal.

To date, ICE has not provided any evidence that the detained Iraqis are a flight risk or pose a danger to the community. This week, the American Civil Liberties Union will be in court to argue that individuals should be released under supervision while they fight their deportation cases. The hearing is the next step in the ACLU’s challenge, which charged ICE with attempting to deport people back to Iraq without due process, and in spite of credible evidence that they would face religious persecution and violence due to their connections to America.

Among those arrested were Christians, Kurds, and Muslims who had been living in the United States for varying lengths of time, many for decades. A majority of those swept up are Chaldean Christians, a religious and ethnic minority that faces violent persecution in Iraq. Fears of violence have been exacerbated by the rise of ISIS, which has also targeted Sunni and Kurdish Muslims. All of these individuals have reason to believe that living in America will mark them as targets for persecution cialis pas cher in Iraq.

Deporting people to a country where they are likely to face violent persecution is not only immoral — it is against American and international law. In July, Judge Mark A. Goldsmith halted the deportation of more than 1,400 Iraqi nationals across the United States, finding that “each petition faces the risk of torture of death on the basis of resident in America …and many will also face persecution as a result of a particular religious affiliation.” When weighing these threats against the “cost and efficiency in administering the immigration system,” he found that “such interests pale to the point of evaporation.”

With this reprieve, Iraqis with open orders of removal were allowed valuable time to reopen their immigration cases. And so far, they are winning.

As of November 11, 87 percent of the motions to reopen cases in immigration court that have been fully adjudicated have been granted. Of the ten cases that have so far been adjudicated on the merits in immigration court, in every single one, the noncitizen has won some kind of immigration relief or protection from deportation. The courts recognize that these individuals have strong claims for asylum, with many facing a significant likelihood of persecution, torture, or death if returned to Iraq.

The families are winning their legal claims in spite of the enormous hardship that detention presents. Following the summer of raids, individuals were sent to all parts of the country, making it extremely difficult for them to see family members and work with attorneys.

Our own investigations have exposed abuse by ICE including failure to respond in a timely manner to detainees’ requests for medical help, and undue pressure on detainees to sign away their right to fight deportation. One individual suffered excruciating pain after he was sent back to detention after undergoing quadruple by-pass heart surgery. The detention facility ignored the recommendation from his surgeon who wanted to keep him in the hospital for monitoring. Instead, the facility brought him back just days after the surgery and refused to give him medications vital to his recovery.

With each passing day, hardships at home are mounting. The majority of those detained were the providers, caretakers, and stabilizing forces of their families. Without their presence, disabled children are at risk of missing medical appointments, families are forced to close their businesses and move out of their homes, and loved ones  are plagued with fear for the safety of those they miss.

Others feel a stinging sense of exclusion. Having lived a substantial portion of their lives in the United States, many detainees fear returning to Iraq and being persecuted as unwelcomed Americanized outsiders.  Most have made this country their home and don’t have roots or social capital to go “back” to if they are forced to make new lives there. Others fled to the United States after having risked their lives aiding U.S military efforts in Iraq.

In a rush to deport as many Iraqis as possible, ICE would have put people at risk of persecution, torture or death. Since the court blocked that option, ICE continues its crusade to make the people’s lives so miserable that they give up their right to remain in this country with their families. 

There is no compelling reason for ICE to lock up these men and women while they fight the government’s attempt to unlawfully deport them. The court should step in and order their release.

The ACLU of Michigan disagrees with the U.S. Court of Appeals decision yesterday dismissing our challenge to the FBI’s designation of Juggalos as a gang. Nonetheless, we are proud of what the case accomplished and we were honored to represent the Juggalo family.

The court ruled that the Juggalos can only sue the local police, and not the FBI, for violating Juggalos’ right to free expression. We disagree. After all, it was the FBI’s fault that the local police targeted Juggalos after the FBI published misleading statements about Juggalos being a “loosely-affiliated hybrid gang” in its 2011 National Gang Report.

Although the court ruling was unfavorable, it’s important to recognize that the case was very successful in many respects. The ACLU and Insane Clown Posse had four major goals when we filed this case in federal court: (1) Fight back against the FBI for suggesting that the hundreds of thousands of people were criminal gang members simply because they liked a music group; (2) Raise awareness that Juggalos are part of a family, not a gang; (3) Force the federal government to admit that Juggalos are not criminals; and (4) Place the local police on notice that if they mistreat people just because they are Juggalos, they are violating the Constitution. 

As shown below, we largely met each of these goals.

Fighting Back and Raising Awareness

When the FBI issued its gang report suggesting that Juggalos were gang members, the Juggalos fought back. With the help of the ACLU and the firm of Miller Canfield, they filed a lawsuit arguing that the gang designation violated their right to free expression. When the FBI first tried to dismiss the case, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in favor of the Juggalos in a great victory that will help others seeking to challenge unconstitutional government abuse. Recognizing that the gang designation caused concrete harm, the court held that the Juggalos had “standing” to sue to vindicate their constitutional rights.

Critically, the Juggalos did not just leave it to the lawyers to fight for their rights. They took to the streets and organized a very successful March on Washington that drew thousands of protestors.

And perhaps most importantly, the case and the march raised awareness about the absurdity of labelling people gang members just because they love ICP music and Juggalo culture. Because of the case and the march, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of favorable articles, TV news stories, videos or documentaries educating the public about the peaceful nature of Juggalos. 

The Feds Admit that Juggalos Aren’t Gang Members

Although the FBI refused to issue a statement to local police to counter the suggestion in the 2011 gang report that Juggalos were gang members, its attorneys repeatedly and clearly made the point throughout the litigation. From the very beginning, the FBI’s lawyers said that “only certain subsets of Juggalos were engaged in criminal activity,” not all Juggalos. Again on appeal, the government said that only “a small number of Juggalos are” engaging in gang-like activity. After we won the first appeal, the government insisted in its second motion to dismiss that “the report does not label the entire group or everyone associated with it as a criminal,” just a small number of people.

Moreover, the only time the FBI listed Juggalos in a gang report was in 2011. The FBI issued two gang reports after we filed our case, but nowhere in those reports is the word “Juggalo” even mentioned.

The Court Put Local Police on Notice that They Can Be Sued for Targeting Juggalos

Yesterday’s Court of Appeals decision essentially let the FBI off the hook because the FBI gang report did not force local police to harass Juggalos. While we disagree with the decision, it’s also important to note that the court made is clear that Juggalos can sue the local police for singling out Juggalos for mistreatment and violating their rights to freedom of expression. The court wrote, “our holding does not foreclose the possibility that [Juggalos] could raise their constitutional claims against individual officers.”

The take-away message is that we need to remain vigilant in protecting Juggalos from police misconduct. If you believe you are targeted by the police simply because you have expressed your identity as a Juggalo, we want to hear about it. Please email as many details about the incident to our co-counsel from Psychopathic Records, Farris H. Haddad at FarrisTheJuggalawyer@gmail.com.

***

So, while the Court of Appeals decision is unfortunate, the fight continues. The government does not have to like your taste in music and the government does not have to understand you. But it cannot punish you simply because you are part of the Juggalo family. We will stand with you as you assert your rights.