ICE settles claims of mistreating immigrants in pandemic

Immigration and Customs Enforcement reached a settlement to resolve allegations the federal agency mistreated immigrants in custody during the pandemic by delaying testing during an outbreak, knowingly housing people displaying COVID-19 symptoms in close quarters with the general populace and lying to the court about its pandemic response.

The settlement includes a temporary population cap to enforce social distancing, mandates for testing and vaccinating staff and people in custody, compliance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, the release of medically vulnerable people and protections against re-detention for around 250 immigrants released because of the lawsuit. U.S. District Court Judge Vince G. Chhabria in San Francisco is scheduled to consider the settlement at a hearing on March 3.

"This is an example of the system working just as it should. We received a series of injunctions that increasingly ratcheted for the class because ICE was incapable of providing that protection on its own," plaintiffs lawyer Martin S. Schenker of Cooley LLP said in an interview Friday. "We had a judge who was deeply engaged in the case and dedicated five days to an evidentiary hearing in November 2020 to learn all of the facts. He gave ICE the opportunity to rectify things on their own, and when it didn't, increasingly took control and implemented protections that undoubtedly saved lives and protected people from serious illness. This demonstrated how the rule of law was, can be and should be vindicated."

The lawsuit was filed in April 2020, weeks after the virus began to ravage the U.S. population. The plaintiffs challenged conditions for immigrants in custody at two detention facilities, Mesa Verde Detention Center and Yuba County Jail. Documents and testimony uncovered during the litigation showed ICE and the private prison company GEO Group Inc. delayed testing during an outbreak, knowingly left people with COVID symptoms in a crowded dormitory, and made repeated misrepresentations to the court regarding their COVID response, the plaintiffs said.

The number of people in custody at the two facilities went from 462 to 62 after the court ordered the release of people over the course of the litigation, the plaintiffs said.

The plaintiffs are represented by lawyers from the San Francisco Public Defender, the ACLU Foundations of Northern and Southern California, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, Lakin & Wille LLP and Cooley. Zepeda Rivas et al v. Jennings et al., 3:20-cv-02731, (N.D. Cal., filed April 20, 2020).

Sean C. Riordan, senior staff attorney for the immigrants rights program at the ACLU of Northern California, said in an interview Friday, "It's critically important, even with the protections this settlement agreement provides, to remember that ICE should be doing everything possible to release people from detention and ensure that people who remain in detention are protected from this terrible disease. What this case shows, because so many people have been released back to their families and communities is that we as a society are grossly overusing immigration detention and we need to rethink that completely."

ICE representatives declined to comment on the litigation. The GEO Group Inc is a private contractor who manages one of the facilities in question, the Mesa Verde Detention Center. It did not reply Friday to an email request for comment.