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Justice officials fight move to halt immigration detentions
From Kevin Bohn
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Justice Department on Thursday asked a federal court in Los Angeles not to grant the request of four civil liberties groups to issue a restraining order to stop more immigration detentions and to prevent the deportation of those still in custody. The suit stems from the arrests last week of hundreds of Iranian-Americans following an immigration registration deadline. In a motion filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the Justice Department argues a judge should not grant the request, saying the government was acting legally in its immigration registration program and that any harm done to individuals was not caused by it but by their illegal immigration status. Prosecutors say the groups bringing the suit have failed to provide the names of the individual plaintiffs or sufficient information about their background -- both of which are necessary to determine, the government argues, whether the plaintiffs have sufficient legal standing. A hearing in the case, scheduled for Friday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, will be rescheduled under a new judge. The four groups that Tuesday filed suit against the Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service are the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Alliance of Iranian Americans and the National Council of Pakistani Americans. The groups are seeking the restraining order to stop further detentions of immigrants who come forward and to stop the government from deporting those already detained who are in the process of legalizing their status. The groups argued the detentions were not legal. The arrests came in the aftermath of a December 16 deadline for immigrants already in the United States from five selected countries to register. As thousands of male visitors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Sudan registered, more than 450 were arrested for various reasons, including not being in the country legally or because officials deemed more investigation into their backgrounds was necessary. Twenty-one people were still detained in the Los Angeles area and a handful of others were being detained in various locations, according to the Justice Department. In its motion, prosecutors say the groups have failed to demonstrate that the government has "violated any statute, regulation or constitutional provision by detaining (and seeking to remove) those aliens whom the INS (the Immigration and Naturalization Service) discovers to be in violation of immigration laws when they present themselves to registration with the INS." Prosecutors argue the court should reject the request since the plaintiffs "do not contest the fact they are here illegally" and therefore the government acted legally. They also argue the special registration program is not the cause of any harm to the individual plaintiffs but their illegal status which they are seeking to legalize.
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