Immigrant women and children in Artesia New Mexico

There has been a lot of coverage of the hundreds of unaccompanied immigrant children being detained at a facility in Texas. That is just one of the immigration detention centers however, there is another one in Artesia New Mexico which houses hundreds of women and young children fleeing violence in Central America. The detention center is now quarantined due to an outbreak of chicken pox. Immigration lawyers from around the country are trying help these families, one such attorney is Laurel Herndon, founder and Executive Director of the Immigrant Legal Center of Boulder County. She and a group of attorneys from Colorado recently drove to Artesia to the detention center.

On August 22nd, The American Civil Liberties Union, American Immigration Council, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and National Immigration Law Center filed a suit against the federal government to challenge its policies denying a fair deportation process to mothers and children who have fled extreme violence, death threats, rape, and persecution in Central America and come to the United States seeking safety.

The groups filed the case on behalf of mothers and children locked up at the detention center in Artesia, New Mexico.