Vigil to protest holding of families seeking asylum

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A vigil is planned Friday night at the National Civil Rights Museum to protest the detention of Central American women and children who are seeking asylum in the United States.

The vigil, organized by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Memphis Immigration Advocates, Community Legal Center and Latino Memphis, will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. outside the museum at 450 Mulberry.

They plan to light candles and listen to speakers, including people who were detained after coming to the United States, said Casey Bryant, managing attorney for Derechos Immigration Program at Latino Memphis, which provides immigration representation for low-income individuals.

Detention centers were set up in response to an influx of families fleeing gang violence and domestic violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, said Memphis-based immigration attorney Sheila Starkey Hahn, who gave legal counsel to detainees held at centers in New Mexico and Texas.

On Aug. 21, U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Central District of California found that the government breached an agreement that determined in 1997 how unaccompanied immigrant children would be treated. She ordered children to be released “without unnecessary delay.” Accompanying parents were to be released with exceptions for people determined to pose flight risks and threats to others or to national security, according to her order. The defendants in the case argued “the proposed remedies could heighten the risk of another surge in illegal migration across our Southwest border by Central American families, including by incentivizing adults to bring children with them on their dangerous journey as a means to avoid detention and gain access to the interior of the United States,” a statement the judge said was “speculative at best, and, at worse, fear-mongering,” according to her order.

She ordered the defendants to implement the court’s remedies by Friday, including monitoring compliance for standards of safe and sanitary facilities.

The vigil Friday is planned to coincide with Gee’s deadline. For more information, visit raicestexas.org/pages/action.