Law Prof Does Good in Detention Case

A federal jury federal on Tuesday awarded a successful political asylum seeker, who had fled tribal warfare in Somalia, $100,001 after finding that her rights were violated while in custody at a detention center operated for U.S. immigration authorities by a private contractor known as Esmor Corp.

Penny Venetis, a law professor at Rutgers School of Law–Newark and co-director of its constitutional litigation clinic, represented the plaintiff in the case.

The jury found that  Esmor executives, should pay $100,000 to Somali immigrant Hawa Jama for negligent hiring and training, and $1 for violating the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Venetis claimed “corporate greed” created miserable conditions at the Esmor detention center. Guards routinely beat and cursed detainees, with Jama being called “an African monkey,” Venetis said. “She was denied sanitary napkins, so she just bled all over herself once a month,” Venetis said.

KJ