Children's Legal Center
Children’s Legal Center (CLC) works to provide trauma-informed support to victimized children and families through direct legal and non-legal services. Created in June 2018, CLC’s founding attorneys recognized the growing need for free immigration legal services, especially for children and victims of violence. CLC provides immigration relief screenings for eligibility and direct legal services to undocumented children and families who have experienced victimization. CLC's services include representation before the Immigration Court for asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors, as well as undocumented victims living in our communities.
THE CASE
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[Class Representative] v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Children's Legal Center represents 68 individuals who came into the United States to seek asylum, encountered ICE and whose personal documents were confiscated by ICE (and not returned). Children’s Legal Center is in the process of filing a class action lawsuit against ICE for the seizure of personal documents of identification, such as passports and birth certificates contending that these actions violate due process and the 4th Amendment by preventing these individuals from applying for work authorization and harming their chances of winning asylum because they cannot provide corroborating evidence of biographical information.
Many of our clients have been victims of this injustice and have been unable to obtain replacement documents due to lack of access to their consulates, the costs charged by the consulates for replacement documents, and the pandemic. CLC is seeking the return of all original documents to current and future class members as well as a nationwide injunction preventing ICE from further seizing personal identifying documents of income asylum seekers.
