Immigrant detainees are left in limbo

More than two months after the immigration detention center on Terminal Island temporarily closed for preventive maintenance and 408 detainees were transferred to other facilities, immigration officials said they have no date set for its reopening and are still assessing the repairs necessary.

Meanwhile, immigration judges have approved the government’s requests to move the vast majority of the 299 pending cases from San Pedro to other courts around the nation. The changes of venue have frustrated many immigrants and their attorneys, who said the transfers have delayed cases and affected their outcomes.

When the San Pedro Processing Center closed Oct. 22, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the repair work -- including to a hot water boiler and a fire-suppression system -- would take at least a month.

ICE said at the time that there were no plans to close the center but that they were considering transferring control to a private company because of the high cost of upkeep.

Last week, ICE declined to discuss the future of the center. The agency issued a statement saying: “At this time, ICE is working with engineering and construction professionals to evaluate the extent of the work to be done.”

Spokeswoman Virginia Kice said it’s important to do a thorough assessment. “If that takes longer than anticipated, we still need to do it right,” she said.

The majority of the San Pedro detainees, 230, were moved to Texas, while 132 were sent to Arizona, 26 to Washington and 20 to other facilities in California.

Kice said the agency’s goal is to keep court cases moving through the system while contractors evaluate the San Pedro facility. Changes of venue on fewer than 50 cases are still pending, Kice said.

“Our priority is ensuring those detainees get fair and timely hearings,” she said.

But immigration attorneys said that is not how it has worked out for many. Some had been appearing before the same judges for months or years and their cases were in the final stages. Now, they are waiting for new court dates with new judges.

“It’s pretty grim,” said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Nora Preciado, who specializes in immigration detention. “This whole transfer just delays their cases. It just keeps them sitting in detention for no good reason.”

Salvadoran immigrant Hugo Bolanos, 32, had a court date set in San Pedro on Oct. 25 but was transferred to Texas three days earlier. That court session was canceled and now he is waiting for a new date in Texas.

Bolanos came to the United States in 2000 and was placed in immigration detention five years later after serving time for a drug-related criminal conviction. The government planned to deport him, but Bolanos fought the case in immigration court and won. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed the decision, he said.

Bolanos had hoped the judge would order him released Oct. 25. Now he is not sure what is going to happen because he lost representation when he was moved.

“The truth is the transfers have affected us very much,” he said from the detention center in Texas. “We don’t have access to our attorneys or witnesses.”

Another detainee, Naseeb Aburajab, was transferred to Texas on Oct. 20, two days before what he believed would be his final court hearing in San Pedro. Aburajab, 40, who is Palestinian but was raised in Kuwait, is fighting to stay in the United States based on the hardship to his wife and two children, all U.S. citizens.

Since he has been in Texas, the San Pedro judge has issued a decision in his favor, but the government has not released him from custody.

“They are the muscles,” he said. “I really can’t do anything.”

ICE officials said they considered detainees’ criminal histories, medical conditions and status of their legal cases when making the transfers. Most detainees had to be transferred out of state because of limited bed space in California, especially for criminal detainees or those with medical or psychiatric problems, according to ICE.

The other center in Los Angeles County is Mira Loma detention center in Lancaster, which is run by the Sheriff’s Department and can house about 1,000 detainees. ICE approved adding 400 beds but is still awaiting its budget allocation to see if the expansion can proceed. But even with added beds, Mira Loma cannot house certain detainees.

“San Pedro played a vital role because it was equipped to house the more serious criminal offenses as well as the medical cases that we can’t currently accommodate at Mira Loma,” Kice said.

Lina Balciunas, who is representing a Vietnamese asylum seeker pro bono, said she successfully fought the government’s attempt to change the venue to Texas in her client’s case. Instead, the judge sent the case to the court in Lancaster.

“The witnesses are here, the evidence is here, I am here,” she said.

But when Balciunas came to a scheduled hearing in Lancaster earlier this month, she was told the case file was still in Texas. Her client also remains in Texas because the Mira Loma detention facility said it couldn’t accept him because he has cancer.

“To us, it appears that the rules are being made up as we go along,” she said. “The government holds all the cards. Like all of our bureaucracy, everything can take whatever time they choose to take.”

Attorneys have also expressed concern that the changes of venue may have a significant effect on their clients’ cases because of the wide disparity in rulings by immigration judges and appellate court justices. They also said some detainees may have agreed to move their cases without knowing how it could affect the outcome.

anna.gorman@latimes.com