ACLU sues government on behalf of immigrant children

A nationwide class-action lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, and several immigrant groups on behalf of children challenging the federal government's alleged failure to provide them with legal representation during deportation hearings against them.

Among the groups joining the ACLU is K&L Gates, Seattle’s oldest law firm.

The opinion of the government has always been these are civil proceedings, so unlike a criminal case, there's no right to a public defender, said attorney Matt Adams with Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

“The only way you can have a fair hearing, when you have a child there, and a government attorney on the other side in this adversarial process, is that if they're also assigned legal representation,” he said.

The U.S. government initiates immigration court proceedings against thousands of children annually who are here illegally. Some of those grew up in the United States and have lived in the country for years, and many have fled violence and persecution in their home countries, the groups said in a statement.

They note that the Obama administration recently called an influx of children coming across the Southern border a "humanitarian situation,” but said thousands of children required to appear in immigration court each year without an attorney.

The groups say that’s an unacceptable practice that needs to be changed.

"If we believe in due process for children in our country, then we cannot abandon them when they face deportation in our immigration courts," Ahilan Arulanantham, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said in a statement. "The government pays for a trained prosecutor to advocate for the deportation of every child. It is patently unfair to force children to defend themselves alone."

The groups said the case plaintiffs include:

•             A 10-year-old boy, his 13-year-old brother, and 15-year-old sister from El Salvador, whose father was murdered in front of them.

•             A 14-year-old girl who had been living with her grandparents, but was forced to flee El Salvador after being threatened and then attacked by gang members.

•             A 15-year-old boy who was abandoned and abused in Guatemala, and came to the United States without any family or friends.

•             A 17-year-old boy who fled gang violence and recruitment in Guatemala and now lives with his lawful permanent resident father in Los Angeles.

The ACLU said in a statement that all face “a very real risk of being sent back into the perilous circumstances they left.”

The complaint charges the U.S. Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Health and Human Services, Executive Office for Immigration Review, and Office of Refugee Resettlement with violating the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause and the Immigration and Nationality Act’s provisions requiring a "full and fair hearing" before an immigration judge.

It seeks to require the government to provide children with legal representation in their deportation hearings.

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