Professor Cooper, ACLU of Northern California prevail in Ninth Circuit decision

Professor Holly Cooper, the ACLU of Northern California and co-counsel Cooley LLP scored a victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on behalf of immigrant teenagers who had been jailed by the Trump administration for alleged gang affiliation.

In an opinion issued on Oct. 1, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction requiring the government to give the teenagers notice of the reasons for their arrests, access to the evidence being offered against them, and a prompt hearing in front of a judge, in which the government would have the burden to justify their detention. The children were released to their parents.

The detained children had been arrested on Long Island, N.Y., under “Operation Matador” and flown across country to the Yolo County juvenile detention facility, Cooper said, and it took days for their parents to be notified of their whereabouts.

A Spanish-language story in the San Diego Union-Tribune quoted Cooper about the case.

Professor Holly S. Cooper ’98, co-director of the Immigration Law Clinic, has extensive litigation experience defending the rights of immigrants and is a nationally recognized expert on immigration detention issues and on the immigration consequences of criminal convictions.