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Vol. 30, Issue 39 BROOKLYN EDITION October 4 - 10, 2019
Lawsuits
against ICE
arrests TOUGH
By Bert Wilkinson
Still reeling from the aftermath
of Hurricane Dorian
last month, The Bahamas
has begun to take a hard line
against immigrants in devastated
areas with cabinet ministers
urging workers operating
there even legally to go
home until living conditions
improve.
Under pressure to deliver
acceptable living conditions
in Abaco and Grand Bahama
islands, the two hardest hit
areas, authorities this week
suggested that migrant workers
who have lost their jobs
because of the storm “need
to go home” for the while. If
they remain, employers must
be able to show that acceptable
living conditions exist or their
right to remain will be denied
Attorney General Carl Bethel
said.
Officials fear that too many
may become dependent on a
system that is already struggling
to provide housing and
other forms of relief to locals,
most of whom lost everything
when one of the most powerful
Atlantic storms on record
stalled itself over Abaco and
Grand Bahama for more than a
day, leveling the islands, Abaco
in particular. Officials have
recovered close to 60 bodies
amid fears that the death toll
will rise as clean up efforts
intensify.
The administration of Prime
Minister Hubert Minnis put out
a statement at the start of the
A migrant from Haiti holds a girl who cries as they wait
to get food from humanitarian organizations in Nassau,
Bahamas, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2019. A preliminary report
estimates Dorian caused some $7 billion in damage, but
the government has not yet offered any fi gures.
Associated Press / Ramon Espinosa Continued on Page 3
By Nelson A. King
New York Attorney General,
Letitia James and Brooklyn
District Attorney, Eric Gonzalez,
and The Legal Aid Society
and the law firm Cleary Gottlieb
Steen & Hamilton LLP
have filed two separate lawsuits
in the United States District
Court for the Southern
District of New York (SDNY)
against the US Immigration
and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) agency, challenging the
legality of the agency’s practice
of making civil immigration
arrests for Caribbean and
other immigrants without a
judicial warrant or court order
in and around New York State
courthouses.
The first lawsuit, filed
jointly by James and Gonzalez,
makes the case that ICE
arrests in and around courthouses
impede the administration
of justice and adversely
impact public safety.
The suit seeks to halt a twoyear
pattern of civil immigration
arrests by federal ICE
agents in and around state
courts, “which have caused a
major disruption to state court
operations,” James said.
“By targeting witnesses
and victims for arrests, noncitizens
and immigrants are
deterred from assisting in state
Continued on Page 24
CALL
The Bahamas takes hard line
against immigrants
We've Got the Power!
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