Groups organize to help people seeking asylum

Five groups joined to discuss protecting asylum seekers’ rights to possibly be released on bond at immigration hearings. The groups were Mijente, Puente Arizona, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, Detention Watch Network and the National Bail Fund Network.

At least five organizations held a community workshop to discuss how to protect asylum seekers’ rights to possibly be released on bond at an immigration hearing.

The groups, Mijente, Puente Arizona, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, Detention Watch Network and the National Bail Fund Network held the workshop Monday evening in Phoenix.

More than 50 organizations, including the ones mentioned above, have signed and submitted an amicus brief — a legal document demanding that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions not alter policy set by a 2005 Board of Immigration Appeals ruling that asylum seekers have a right to a bond hearing after proving they have a credible fear for returning to their home country.

Jacinta Gonzalez, a senior campaign organizer at Mijente, said Sessions is referring immigration cases for himself to review, preventing the asylum seekers involved in those cases from receiving a bond hearing so they remain in a detention center indefinitely.

The ruling could affect thousands of migrants who make up a caravan slowly traveling north from southern Mexico.

Gonzalez said Sessions is referring cases to himself to establish precedent before altering the BIA ruling.

“It’s a power move,” Gonzalez told

The Arizona Republic. “He’s concentrating power at the DOJ and taking power away from immigration judges.”

Gonzalez alleges the move empowers U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the private prison industry. She said it can sometimes take asylum seekers years to be processed out of a detention facility, which can be especially lucrative for some of the private entities that run them.

“This administration is using (the migrant caravan) as an opportunity to push their continuous agenda against (immigration),” Gonzalez said. “Their white nationalist perspective about who is worthy or who is not worthy to enter the U.S. continues to be represented in a lot of these policy decisions.”

Sessions made headlines in June 2018 when he announced victims of domestic or gang violence would no longer qualify for asylum. He’s expected to render a decision on the BIA policy after Nov. 9.

Representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.