Asylum-seekers locked up in the Deep South launch a legal bid for parole

ATLANTA - For an asylum-seeker who presents himself at the U.S.-Mexico border, there may be no worse place in America to be sent than a jail in a rural pocket of the Deep South.

Asylum-seekers are forced by a hostile system to languish in far-flung detention centers with no hope of parole, scant access to lawyers and ultimately little chance of winning their cases, a new lawsuit alleges. Last year, out of 130 asylum-seekers in one Immigration and Customs Enforcement district, it says, only two were granted parole.

"When ICE makes strategic decisions about where to ship hundreds of asylum-seekers, it has to know the Louisiana field office is not granting relief on parole to anybody," said Laura Rivera, a staff