World | Fri Feb 12, 2016 2:50pm EST

Exclusive: Immigrants arrested in U.S. raids say were misled on right to counsel

WASHINGTON | BY JULIA EDWARDS

U.S. immigration authorities violated their own rules by telling some of the 121 Central American women and children they arrested in raids last month that they had no legal recourse to dispute their deportations, according to several of the women and their lawyers.

The accusation centers on the Jan. 2-4 raids that were the U.S. administration’s first large-scale operation since mid-2014 to deport hundreds of families who crossed the southern border illegally.

Four of the women -- three of them in statements to Reuters through their lawyers and one in an interview with Reuters -- said that ICE agents had misled them on their right to legal counsel while they were detained at a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.

ICE, which oversees deportation operations, denied that its officers told the women they had no legal recourse in their case.

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