ACLU uses a detainee in New Jersey to make its case.


Matt Katz reports for WNYC:


The American Civil Liberties Union and other human and civil rights organizations filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday against the Trump Administration for what it describes as the unconstitutional, indefinite detention of immigrants fleeing persecution and seeking asylum. And it’s using a detainee in New Jersey to make its case.


The suit says a man identified only as N.J.J.R. was beaten in his native Venezuela because he opposed the government. He arrived in the United States in October seeking refuge, but after he declared asylum he was detained as his case was adjudicated. Though N.J.J.R. proved to asylum officers that he had a credible fear of persecution, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not release him on parole to a sponsor, who had offered to give him a place to stay. He is still being held at Essex County Jail.


In fact the ACLU said 100 percent of detained asylum seekers in New Jersey were denied parole from February to September of last year — a sharp departure from past practice. ACLU said the Newark field office of ICE is among the toughest in the nation in withholding parole. John Tsoukaris, director of the Newark field office, was named in the suit.


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