Groups ask judge to stop staff from being fired in DHS office that monitors detention centers

A pair of rights groups trying to stop the closure of accountability offices at the Department of Homeland Security are asking a federal court to step in.

DHS closed three accountability offices earlier this year — including those that monitor conditions in detention centers and investigate alleged human rights abuses.

Advocacy groups sued to stop that process last month. Now, they’re asking the federal court to preserve what’s left of the offices while the case progresses.

Lilian Serrano is director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition — one of the groups behind the suit.

“We are hearing from partners in the immigrant rights movement that some of them are either already filing or considering continuing to file all the violations that we’re seeing on the ground,” she said.

Serrano says they worry those complaints will continue to pile up and go unanswered.

Her group has learned that staff at DHS’s Civil Rights and Civil Liberties office — one of the accountability bodies being shuttered — are slated to be terminated this month. They’re asking the judge to issue a preliminary injunction to put a halt to the firings.