Southern Poverty Law Center Investigates Immigrant Detention in Louisiana
Description: The Southern Poverty Law Center is a step closer to being able to review immigrant detention records in Vermillion Parish. District Judge Herman Clause has ordered the sheriff of Vermillion Parish, Mike Couvillon to turn over the records.
The SPLC has asked 63 of Louisiana's 64 parishes to turn over their records on immigrant retention. All have complied, without dissent except 15. They include Allen, Ascension, Assumption, Caldwell, East Carroll, Lincoln, Livingston, Morehouse, Ouachita, Sabine, St. Helena, St. James, Vermillion, West Baton Rouge Parishes. An SPLC spokesperson says the parish representatives all cited a clause that prohibited the release of certain arrest records which they knew didn't apply.
The SPLC is checking to see if sheriffs are holding immigrants longer than the 48 hours allowed by law, if they have no other legal reason for holding them, except for thinking they are illegal immigrants. If federal immigration officials have not picked up the suspected illegal immigrants within 48 hours, the SPLC says they should be released, unless they are held for some other reason.
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