The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska has launched an online reporting tool to gather information around local and federal law enforcement agencies increasing immigration enforcement actions around the state.
The civil rights group is seeking to monitor Alaska immigration enforcement actions, as the Trump administration has ramped up arrest quotas for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to 3,000 arrests per day, and deployed military forces to Los Angeles earlier this month to quell protests of ICE tactics, arrests and deportations.
Cindy Woods is a senior immigration law and policy fellow with the ACLU of Alaska, one of the staff members monitoring the report tool, and coordinating legal resources.
“There’s a lot of really concerning trends in relation to traffic stops and workplace raids and things like that happening in the Lower 48,” Woods said. “And so we both want to make sure that here in Alaska, folks aren’t living in unnecessary fear. But that also we do understand what enforcement is looking like here in Alaska, so that we can provide the most up to date and helpful information about individuals rights.”
The online form is confidential and currently available in English and Spanish, “and we’re working on getting it in other languages as well,” she said. The form asks for details on immigration enforcement actions, where they occurred, what law enforcement agencies were involved and others.
Woods said the ACLU can assist in locating an individual who has been arrested, “for folks who might also have had a loved one picked up and not know where they are,” she said.
The ACLU is not representing immigration cases, she said, but the organization can connect people to immigration attorneys and legal resources as needed.
There have been several ICE arrests in Alaska, including in Anchorage and Soldotna, and the Alaska Department of Corrections announced earlier this month the state is holding ICE detainees from out of state.
Woods said that regardless of immigration status, civil or criminal charges, or where people were arrested — whether in Alaska or out of state — everyone has equal rights to due process, as their cases move through the courts.
“Noncitizens have equal due process rights to citizens,” she said. “So the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution applies to noncitizens as well, regardless of their immigration status.”
ICE has not responded to repeated requests for comment about why ICE detainees were transferred to Alaska, or what charges — civil or criminal — are being brought against the men now held at the Anchorage Correctional Complex.
Woods said the ACLU has spoken with several ICE detainees in the custody of the Department of Corrections and their attorneys representing them, and learned that some have no criminal charges, and some have previously been granted asylum. “And so while it’s not clear the criminal histories of each of these individuals, I can say with certainty that some of them do not have criminal histories, and some of them actually have been granted immigration relief by our immigration courts, and yet are still being detained,” she said.
Woods said the ACLU has concerns around the state’s standards of detention for ICE detainees, access to communications with attorneys and family members, translation services, as well as medical care. The ACLU filed a class action lawsuit against the Department of Corrections in May challenging what they say is “inadequate, dangerous and inhumane” health care provided for incarcerated Alaskans, “for medical neglect and just the pretty abysmal medical treatment that folks in DOC custody receive,” Woods said. “And so we’re concerned about that.”
The Department of Law has not filed a response to the lawsuit yet.
The Alaska House Judiciary Committee is holding a fact-finding hearing on June 20 in Anchorage, to be streamed online on the Legislature’s website and on Gavel Alaska, to address many of these concerns.
On Friday, a spokesperson with the Department of Corrections said DOC is using translation services, but on Monday declined to answer questions on conditions of detention, detainees’ access to communication with families and attorneys, as well as access to medical care, saying they would be addressed at the June 20 hearing.