Local News in Brief : Legal-Aid Plea for Cubans
An Atlanta civil liberties group Monday began recruiting Los Angeles volunteers, preferably law students, to help Cuban detainees facing deportation hearings in the wake of the November rioting at two federal prisons.
Steven Donziger, an organizer with the Coalition to Support Cuban Detainees, said the volunteers are needed because the vast majority of the 2,400 Cubans from the Mariel boat lift who were involved in the unrest at the federal prisons in Atlanta and Oakdale, La., do not know their rights or have access to assistance.
As a condition of ending the riots, federal authorities agreed to review the case of each detainee to see if they should be set free in the United States or returned to Cuba. About 293 detainees were transferred to the federal prison near the Santa Barbara County town of Lompoc.
Donziger said law students can provide the “minimum level” of representation at the hearings, which will be conducted by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. About 100 students at two Atlanta law schools were trained to aid Cubans before the rioting broke out and their assistance was roundly praised by the detainees, he said.
The training sessions will be held today at 8 a.m. at the USC Law School and at 6 p.m. at the UCLA Law School.
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