Rodney Taylor, a Liberia-born man who is a double amputee and is missing three fingers on one hand has filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court seeking release from Georgia’s Stewart detention center, after being held there by Ice for eight months.
“What is at stake in this case … is one of the most profound individual interests recognized by our legal system: whether Ice may unilaterally take away – without a lawful basis – his physical freedom, ie, his ‘constitutionally protected interest in avoiding physical restraint,’” the petition says.
The action is “a canary in the coal mine for what’s about to happen” nationwide, said Sarah Owings, Taylor’s immigration attorney. “[T]housands of habeas claims are going to be filed across the country,” she said, after a Board of Immigration Appeals decision on 5 September dramatically curtailed the immigration system’s ability to release detainees while awaiting decisions on their status.
This is making immigration attorneys turn to federal district courts, observers told the Guardian.
But this isn’t like the stop killing games petition… this is different.