Thirteen detainees of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency won a temporary restraining order from a Pennsylvania federal court Tuesday after complaining of the poor conditions in the facilities where they were held and their risk of contracting COVID-19. Judge John E. Jones III described the unique and fraught circumstances of the response in stark detail and ordered the correctional facilities “to immediately release the petitioners today on their own recognizance without fail.”

All of the detainees who pleaded the court for relief had health conditions that made them susceptible to serious risk were they to contract COVID-19. “Several Petitioners,” Jones noted, “have reported symptoms similar to those of COVID-19. None have been quarantined, isolated, or treated.”

After describing the unique impact the pandemic has had on American life, the judge began his discussion of the detainees’ case by commenting that “[i]t is against this increasingly grim backdrop that we now consider the Petitioners’ claims for habeas relief.” While awaiting the resolution of their immigration cases, the Petitioners had noted the heightened health risks of the pandemic and the dismal circumstances in the federal detention facilities, including close quarters for many inmates, lack of cleanliness, and insufficient ability to isolate those who are sick or at special risk.

“The Petitioners’ claim is rooted in imminent, irreparable harm,” wrote the judge. “At this point, it is not a matter of if COVID-19 will enter Pennsylvania prisons, but when it is finally detected therein.” Jones concluded that staying in the facilities presented the detainees with “a very real risk of serious, lasting illness or death.”

“Petitioners have shown that adequate measures are not in place and cannot be taken to protect them from COVID-19 in the detention facilities, and that catastrophic results may ensue, both to Petitioners and to the communities surrounding the Facilities,” wrote the judge. Before ordering the authorities to release the detainees so that they can attend to their medical needs and isolate as well as possible, the judge noted that ICE had many means available (such as location monitoring) well short of detention in risky facilities to pursue their objective of ensuring that detainees show up at their scheduled removal proceedings.

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