James H. Binger Center for New Americans Prevails in Landmark Habeas Corpus Case

After years of work, the Binger Center for New Americans has achieved key objectives to protect the rights of noncitizens subject to immigration custody. The Binger Center’s work—spearheaded by the Federal Immigration Litigation Clinic (FILC), the Detainee Rights Clinic (DRC), and some of the Center’s nonprofit and law firm partners—has focused on noncitizens with criminal histories who are spending years in mandatory civil immigration detention in Minnesota with little opportunity to meaningfully challenge their custody.

Most recently, the Federal Immigration Litigation Clinic prevailed in Zackaria M. v. Garland before the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. Clinic faculty and students joined forces with the law firm of Robins Kaplan, the National Immigrant Justice Center, Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, The Advocates for Human Rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union, on the habeas corpus case related to noncitizens in prolonged detention.

“We finally won all of the due process protections we had been seeking,” said Nadia Anguiano ’17, associate professor of clinical law and director of FILC. “We got to this point incrementally. Our position from the start was that not only did the Constitution require a custody hearing and that the government must bear the burden of proof, but also that the adjudicator must consider the ability to post bond and alternatives to detention. This was a difference maker for those who have been languishing for years in county jails with no opportunity to contest their civil immigration custody.”

Read the full article about the FILC victory in Minnesota Law magazine