From the Center for Constitutional Rights:
Contact: press@ccrjustice.org
Filing Follows COVID-19 Outbreaks and Similar Demands for Release Nationwide
April
29, 2020, Birmingham, AL – Late yesterday, Adelante Alabama Worker
Center, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the National
Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild (NIP-NLG) filed an
emergency petition and temporary restraining order for the release of
medically vulnerable people currently held in Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) detention. The filing seeks the release of 18 people
being detained in Unit 9 of the Etowah County Detention Center in
Gadsden, Alabama, and cites their severe risk of contracting the novel
coronavirus COVID-19 and developing life-threatening symptoms. Other
medically vulnerable immigrants have filed petitions for release in
other states, with courts ordering releases from other ICE detention
centers. The filings in each case warn that the near-certainty of
coronavirus outbreaks in these facilities renders the continued
detention of these individuals a potential death sentence for a civil
immigration violation.
“I am scared of dying in here,” said Bakhodir Madjitov,
who has been detained since 2017. “What will my family do? When ICE
suddenly detained me, my wife Madina was 39-weeks pregnant with my
littlest child…. I have only ever seen my son once, through the glass at
a detention center. I have never been able to hold him in my arms. My
wife and three little boys were barely managing without me before
COVID-19. Now, everything is much worse. Madina lost her job due to the
pandemic, and now she says she has no idea how she will take care of the
children.”
The complaint and the declarations made by
those imprisoned describe not only the impossibility of social
distancing inside the Etowah jail—where up to four people are held in
cramped six-by-six-foot cells—but also the growing issue of
overcrowding, worsened by staff combining people being detained by ICE
from two units to a single unit. New people continue to be brought into
the jail, including some reportedly exposed to COVID-19. More than 100
people now share a single unit with communal showers, dining, and
recreation areas. Toilets are inside the cells with no partition.
Detained individuals report receiving inadequate or no cleaning and
hygiene supplies, despite being required to clean their own cells. Some
have used shampoo to clean cells. Those assigned to clean common areas
have not been provided with protective gear.
“Etowah
County Detention Center has built a national reputation as ICE’s
warehouse for prolonged detention, with conditions so abysmal they have
compelled people to lose hope and accept deportation,” Jessica Vosburgh,
Executive and Legal Director at Adelante explains. “In the wake of
COVID-19, the individuals caged in Etowah are not only fighting against
their deportations, they are fighting for their lives.”
According
to declarations filed by infectious disease and public health experts
from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Yale, and Tulane, it is
impossible for Etowah to comply with CDC guidelines around social
distancing, quarantine, and treatment, and the jail’s already inadequate
medical facilities will inevitably be overwhelmed.
The
18 people filing this petition with the court, many of whom are seeking
protection in the U.S. from violence, torture or persecution in their
home countries, report extensive pre-existing health conditions that
make them especially vulnerable to developing life-threatening COVID-19
infections.
Such conditions include asthma so severe the prisoner has
coughed up blood, heart disease, kidney disease, , cancer, chronic
bronchitis and other lung conditions, and diabetes. Many of them take
numerous medications to control pre-existing health issues, including
some that suppress their immune systems. Even before the pandemic,
ongoing health problems were allowed to fester with no or inadequate
treatment; since the outbreak, detainees report that medical checkups
for chronic conditions have been suspended. Attorneys say coronavirus
has exacerbated already dire conditions in ICE facilities.
“While
this suit seeks to protect these individuals from lethal harm, it is
also part of a broader effort to expose the horrid conditions in ICE
detention facilities and the vast, illegitimate detention system and
cruel and arbitrary punitive reflex that pervades in this country,” said
Baher Azmy, Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Local advocacy groups such as Shut Down Etowah are also calling for the release of ICE detainees, responding with several letters
to Etowah County Sheriff Jonathan Horton and regional ICE Director
Dianne Witte and staging a caravan protest outside the facility last
week. Shut Down Etowah Organizer Lisa Moyer says, “This petition isn’t
just about securing the freedom of the 18 peole detained in Unit 9. It’s
about every person trapped inside of Etowah County Detention Center,
desperately hoping that the air they breathe won’t put them in a
casket.” Shut Down Etowah has teamed up with regional bond organization Etowah Freedom Fund to start a COVID-19 emergency fund that will be used to provide commissary and bail money to people in detention.
“ICE’s
insistence on continuing to detain medically vulnerable people during a
global pandemic is cruel and dangerous, and it shines a light on how
needless immigration detention is in the first place,” said Sirine
Shebaya, Executive Director of the National Immigration Project of the
National Lawyers Guild. “Through this litigation, we hope to obtain
release for our clients, but also to raise public awareness about the
inhumane manner in which people in ICE detention are treated, and the
bloated system of mass incarceration our immigration authorities are
using taxpayer money to fund, in the face of all evidence that it is
unnecessary and harmful to our communities.”
The
complaint filed today argues that the risk of death for a civil
immigration violation—due to grossly inadequate sanitation and
healthcare, along with the impossibility of following CDC guidelines in
such over-crowded conditions—violates constitutional protections
ensuring adequate care and preventing deliberate indifference to obvious
medical risks. It also argues that those in the detention center are
being denied their constitutional right to counsel, as visits are banned
and the facilities lack practical means of placing confidential calls
to lawyers.
Jeremy Jong in New Orleans is co-counsel in the case.
The case is Williams v. Horton and was filed in federal court in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
For more information and to read today’s filings, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights’ case page.
Adelante Alabama Worker Center is a nonprofit organization that unites low-wage immigrant workers and their families in the Birmingham area to defend our rights, promote our dignity, and pursue justice for all. To learn more and get involved visit www.adelantealabama.org or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @adelantealabama.
The National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild
(NIPNLG) is a national non-profit organization that provides technical
assistance and support to community-based immigrant organizations, legal
practitioners, and all advocates seeking and working to advance the
rights of noncitizens. NIPNLG utilizes impact litigation, advocacy, and
public education to pursue its mission. Learn more at nipnlg.org. Follow
NIPNLG on social media: National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild on Facebook, @NIPNLG on Twitter.
The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, the Center for Constitutional Rights has taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. Learn more at ccrjustice.org.
