Two Guatemalan families suing 12 Trump admin officials for violating their due-process rights

____The lawsuit, believed to be the first claim for compensation for the more than 2,500 children taken from their parents under the Trump administration policy, seeks unspecified damages to create a mental health fund to pay for therapy and treatment.

“These families . . . have been treated so inhumanely, so cruelly, and so inconsistently with the principles of this country that this lawsuit has been filed on their children’s behalf to seek redress for the damages that their children suffered,” Susan Church, a Boston immigration lawyer, said Thursday. She is one many attorneys who filed the lawsuit and gathered at the law offices of Todd and Weld in Boston Thursday to announce the complaint.

The complaint was filed on behalf of two Guatemalan families now living in the Worcester area who were detained and separated after crossing the border earlier this year to seek asylum in the United States. Their lawyers identified them only by their initials because the immigrants, who said they were fleeing violence, fear retribution if they are sent back to Guatemala.

Lawyers for the immigrants are seeking to certify the class-action lawsuit so that all children separated under the policy, as well as children who could be separated in the future, would be represented in the case.

read more: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/09/06/immigrants-suffered-under-trump-family-separation-policy-now-government-should-compensate-them-lawsuit-says/BKVaaKDABQwKUIGFsK79LI/story.html