A coalition of groups providing legal services to immigrants filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration Wednesday seeking information on a program that allows immigration judges to conduct removal proceedings for immigrants while they're incarcerated and often without access to an attorney.

They're seeking that information to figure out how the program is administered by the federal government, and to share those findings with the public, the complaint said.

The case was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by the American Immigration Council, American Immigration Lawyers Association, and the Immigrant Defense Project.

They're not challenging the program itself in the lawsuit, though they argued in the complaint that parts of it are unconstitutional. As of now, they're only seeking for the federal government to comply with a Freedom of Information Request they filed seeking more information on the program in April.

It goes by a few different names, but is commonly called the Institutional Hearing Program, or IHP. It's also called the Institutional Removal Program and the Institutional Hearing and Removal Program.

It's intended to allow immigrants to go through removal proceedings while they're incarcerated in federal, state and local correctional facilities. That way, if removal is ordered, the immigrant will be deported immediately after their sentence is served.

But that comes with a host of problems, the plaintiffs argued. Many incarcerated immigrants subject to the IHP are either indigent or mentally ill, for example. While those in immigration custody often have access to an attorney, immigrants subject to the IHP may not, the suit claimed.

“The inability to access counsel, sometimes while suffering from mental illness, is particularly problematic where reports indicate that most noncitizens in IHP proceedings cannot appear in person before an immigration judge and instead must defend themselves from deportation over video teleconference,” the suit said. “Given the opacity of the IHP, the scope of these problems remains unknown.”

Use of the IHP had been steadily declining over the last two decades until the beginning of the Trump administration, the plaintiffs said. A memorandum from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent in 2017 said the program would be expanded “to the maximum extent possible.”

That was followed by an announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice saying the IHP would expand to operate in 14 federal correctional facilities operated by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and six facilities contracted with the agency.

Aside from those announcements, there's little information on where the program operates and how it's been administered. The federal government has previously stated its intention to operate the IHP in state and local facilities, but no public information exists about whether that's been the case in recent years, the suit claimed.

“The current scope and operation of the IHP remains unclear,” the complaint said.

It's also unclear which immigrants are targeted by the program, and whether those individuals have been represented by legal counsel during the proceedings. There's scant information, the suit said, on who's been subject to the IHP and how their cases have turned out.

That's raised a host of questions by the groups, who've said immigrants subject to the program could have been denied legally required safeguards. Chief among them, according to the lawsuit, is the right to legal counsel when faced with deportation, which is provided by the Immigration and Nationality Act.

“The lack of legal assistance and inability to appear in person before an immigration judge present substantial hurdles for mentally ill noncitizens appearing on the IHP docket, as they are particularly vulnerable to due process violations,” the lawsuit said.

Immigrants also have the opportunity to examine the government's evidence, present material on their own behalf, and cross-examine government witnesses, according to the complaint.

Because little information is available about the program, the groups said they're not sure immigrants are being afforded those rights when they're subject to the IHP.

That's why they submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act to the Executive Office for Immigration Review in April. They're seeking information on where the IHP is used, who's been subject to the program, and other associated records.

The federal government has allegedly failed to respond to that request, or make a determination on how to respond to it, by the statutory deadline. That was in late May. They're now seeking to compel the U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the EOIR, to comply with FOIA request.

“Months after receiving the Request, EOIR has not provided any requested records,” the lawsuit said. “As a result, the IHP program continues to operate in opacity, to the detriment of noncitizens, the courts, and the public.”

A spokesman for the DOJ declined to comment on the lawsuit.

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