Peter Schey, a former San Diego attorney who went on to found the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law in Los Angeles, representing clients in precedent-setting class-action cases that affected immigrants, children, and other vulnerable low-income groups, has died. He was 77.
Schey died Tuesday of complications from lymphoma, according to reports.
Born in South Africa to parents who fled Germany — his father was a Jewish anti-Nazi agitator — Schey moved to San Francisco as a teenager with his parents when they packed up during apartheid.
He attended UC Berkeley and the California Western School of Law in San Diego.
After obtaining his law degree, Schey represented low-income immigrants at the Legal Aid Society of San Diego. In 1978, he founded the first national support center dedicated to protecting immigrant rights, now known as the National Immigrant Law Center.
Schey led the case that overturned Prop. 187, the divisive 1994 initiative to deny government services to undocumented immigrants, and represented thousands of detained unaccompanied minors in federal custody — a closely watched Los Angeles federal court case commonly known as the Flores Settlement Agreement.
The nonprofit Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, which Schey founded in 1980 in Los Angeles, has facilitated major changes in the U.S. immigration system — including winning a Supreme Court decision that allowed several million immigrant children to attend public schools, and winning a major lawsuit requiring that all arrested immigrants to be advised of their right to not answer questions, to have a deportation hearing, and to have a lawyer.
He was lead counsel in Plyler vs. Doe, a landmark 1982 Supreme Court decision which found that states cannot deny undocumented children access to free public education.
In the Flores case, Schey fought for the establishment of minimum national standards for the treatment of detained immigrant children and limits to how long they can be held. The case remains under the supervision of U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in the Central District of California.
Schey was diagnosed with cancer late last year, according to his friends and colleagues. Carlos Holguin, who had worked alongside him since 1977, said that Schey went through chemotherapy and his health had been improving for a time..
Schey is survived by a sister, Nicky Arden, and two children, Michael and Alyssa Schey.
City News Service contributed to this report.