CONNECTICUT PROBATION OFFICE MUST ABANDON UNLAWFUL COLLABORATION WITH IMMIGRATION AGENCY, ACLU DEMANDS

Immigrant round-up by Adult Probation Office violates state and federal law.

HARTFORD, CT – The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut and the Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic of Yale Law School today demanded that William Carbone, Executive Director of the Court Support Services Division (CSSD) of the Judicial Branch of Connecticut, order probation officers to cease and desist from interrogating probationers about their immigration status and facilitating the arrests of non-citizens for civil immigration violations by the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The ACLU discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request that the CSSD, which supervises Connecticut’s Adult Probation Offices, has a policy of collaboration with ICE. According to CSSD’s Policy 4.2 – first adopted in May 2003 – probation officers should report any non-citizen or lawful permanent resident probationer to ICE. Probation officers are told to assist ICE in “identifying, locating and facilitating the arrest of” immigrant probationers.

The letter to Mr. Carbone states that the policy violates several Connecticut laws that created the probation system and seek to protect the privacy rights of state residents, and also abridges rights and liberties guaranteed by the state and federal constitutions. The ACLU also emphasizes that this policy is contrary to the spirit and purpose of the probation system, which is intended to rehabilitate, not punish, offenders.

“This is counter-productive,” Renee Redman, Legal Director of the ACLU of Connecticut said. “The fear of being arrested causes many immigrants to refuse to comply with their conditions of probation. We’re not talking about terrorist suspects,” she added. “These are hard-working immigrants who are sentenced to probation - not prison. Their reward for serving their probation is to be taken into ICE custody and imprisoned out of state. This policy is bad for the probation system and bad for the state of Connecticut.”

Criminal defense attorneys fear that this policy will have a negative effect on the state’s criminal justice system. “The Department of Adult Probation, and the state Judicial Department itself, are supposed to be independent from ICE. This policy makes it less likely that non-citizens will accept plea bargains involving probation, thereby increasing the load on the state court system, or, that probationers will simply stop reporting to their probation officers,” said Jon Schoenhorn, President of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.

The ACLU’s demand comes after several immigrants have found ICE waiting to arrest them when, conscientiously abiding by the conditions of their probation, they appeared for meetings with their probation officers. The immigrants were sentenced to probation as a result of DWI charges, an offense for which an immigrant cannot be deported. ICE has accused the immigrants of being unlawfully present in the United States.

Several of the arrests took place in Danbury, where City officials have recently come under fire for instigating a crack-down on immigrant communities. Danbury’s campaign to increase enforcement of federal immigration laws during the past several months has resulted in the arrests of many Danbury residents, who have been charged with immigration violations. Most of the immigrants are imprisoned in other states, far from their families and lawyers.

“These arrests have created fear in the Danbury community. One of the men arrested at probation has a wife and an 8 month old child here. Each arrest by ICE leaves children fatherless and motherless, affecting the youth that are the future of this country,” said Leonel Villavicencio, President of the Danbury Area Coalition for the Rights of Immigrants.

The ACLU is joined by the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic of Yale Law School in its demand that CSSD cease this unlawful and unconscionable practice.