Lawsuit Claims GEO Guards Illegally Separated 13 Fathers And Sons
A San Antonio non-profit that provides legal services to immigrants is suing the private prison company that runs Karnes County Residential Center. The lawsuit claims the company's employees illegally separated detained immigrant fathers and their sons, causing extreme emotional distress.
The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, and two private law firms claim 13 immigrant fathers and sons were separated at the border in June 2018. They were then reunited under a federal district court order, only to be illegally separated again two months later.
RAICES Director of Litigation Manoj Govindaiah said the migrant fathers are suing GEO, the prison company that runs Karnes and employs its guards on behalf of the federal government, for the second separation. Govindaiah says not only was it illegal, it was unnecessarily forceful.
“They dragged several of the dads from their rooms with such force that in a couple of situations the dads’ shoes were pulled off by the dragging,” Govindaiah said. “They used plastic, zip-tie handcuffs on the dads to force them out of their rooms and into a separate holding area.”
Read more: https://www.tpr.org/post/lawsuit-claims-geo-guards-illegally-separated-13-fathers-and-sons
