ULA photo
Local immigrant-rights activists protest by auto outside Hartford ICE facility.
Eighteen detainees have been released so far from a federal immigration detention center in Massachusetts in response to a class action lawsuit alleging that the government has unduly endangered undocumented immigrants by holding them in close, unsanitary quarters during the Covid-19 pandemic.
On Monday afternoon, District Court of Massachusetts Judge William G. Young ordered the release of eight detainees currently being held at the Bristol County House of Corrections (BCHOC) in North Dartmouth, Mass.
That followed orders Young issued last Friday and Monday for the release of another 4 detainees from the Massachusetts facility run by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and . Also last week, ICE voluntarily released six fellow detainees from BCHOC.
The orders come in response to a lawsuit co-filed by a Yale Law School clinic working in collaboration with a variety of New Haven immigrant rights groups that are all calling on the federal government to release undocumented immigrants detained at BCHOC because the facility allegedly poses an undue danger to those being held because of the alleged insufficient access to cleaning materials, inadequate medical care, and the impossibility of practicing social distancing as the Covid-19 pandemic rages outside of the center’s walls.
Click here to read more about the lawsuit and about local families with family members currently detained at BCHOC.
The court is also slated to hear 10 additional individual applications for bail on Wednesday, another 10 on Thursday, another 10 on Friday, and another 10 next Monday.
In a brief filed by the plaintiffs, attorneys argue that the 10 individual detainees should be released because the number of coronavirus-related deaths in Massachusetts has increased tenfold since the lawsuit was first filed on March 27 and because Covid-related travel restrictions in everywhere from the Dominican Republic to the Democratic Republic of the Congro to Peru to Iraq makes deportation practically impossible at this moment.
“As a result, ICE as a practical matter is unable to deport many individuals who are subject to a final order of removal, leaving them at a heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19 due to the prolongation of their detention with no clear end in sight,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys write.
In a brief filed by the federal government on Wednesday morning, federal attorneys argue that the detainees should not be released because there are the number of Covid-positive cases at BCHOC “still stands at zero” and therefore “that the detainees are demonstrably safer within BCHOC than they are outside the facility- even before taking into account the medical care they are receiving.” (According to WBUR, a nurse at the facility has tested positive for Covid-19.)
“Defendants intend to take up the Court’s invitation for further briefing on the issue of whether appropriate social distancing can be maintained at BCHOC,” the government attorneys continue. “Defendants believe it can, and have taken significant steps to reconfigure the sleeping arrangements so as to greatly increase the distance between occupied beds. This will be addressed in short order.”
The federal attorneys also argue that those petitioning for release present a danger to the public because some have “significant criminal backgrounds, including violent crime, drug trafficking as well as fraud and identity-type crimes.”
Immigrant rights advocates have argued that a majority of detainees held at facilities like Bristol are locked up on civil detainers, and that ICE regularly uses detention alternatives like supervised release, electronic ankle monitors, home confinement, and telephonic monitoring during immigration proceedings.
Judge orders release of 8/8 persons considered today (2 on today’s list of 10 were already released). With Friday ruling, that means 18 of first 20 persons listed by Court will be released. #freethemall @LCRBOSTON @ctbailfund @ULAnewhaven @nhlaa @WiracYls pic.twitter.com/2AndKyz83D
— Michael J Wishnie (@MikeWishnie) April 7, 2020
In a Tweet sent out Tuesday night, Yale Law School Professor and Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic (WIRAC) attorney Michael Wishnie celebrated the court’s decisions to release detainees from the ICE facility.
“Judge orders release of 8/8 persons considered today (2 on today’s list of 10 were already released),” he wrote. “With Friday ruling, that means 18 of first 20 persons listed by Court will be released. #freethemall @LCRBOSTON @ctbailfund @ULAnewhaven @nhlaa @WiracYls.”
All ICE detainees who haven't committed violent crimes should be released. All prisoners in our jails and prisons who have been detained for non-violent, low risk crimes should be released during this pandemic. Nursing homes and prisons and other highly concentrated population institutions are sitting ducks for this pandemic. Surely people who committed low level offenses and non-violent offenses can just get an ankle bracelet and be monitored until this crisis is over.