Orrick pressures ICE to protect detainees from COVID-19

An Orrick pro bono team is participating with civil rights organisations to force the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to protect immigrant detainees against the COVID-19 virus.

Orrick has joined in an emergency application for a preliminary injunction in a California federal court to force ICE to take immediate steps to protect people in immigration facilities from virus, following the first confirmed positive case of COVID-19 of a person in ICE detention, the law firm said in a statement.

The motion, filed in the central district of California, argues that if ICE does not take immediate action to ensure that medically vulnerable people are protected from COVID-19 – including providing timely access to qualified and necessary healthcare – then ICE should be ordered to release those individuals in the interest of public health.

The preliminary injunction is being sought as part of an existing class action lawsuit, Fraihat v. ICE, on behalf of the nearly 40,000 people held in ICE’s detention system. Based on first-hand observations from attorneys serving clients inside detention centers and direct reports from detainees, the current conditions are medically dangerous and fail to meet standard public health recommendations for addressing the pandemic. Today’s filing asserts that ICE has not provided even the most basic public health protections, such as reducing crowding to accommodate social distancing or providing soap and hand sanitizer, placing individuals with underlying health conditions in danger of infection and death.

The preliminary injunction, if granted, would force ICE to immediately assess medically vulnerable people for COVID-19 risk factors and either implement medically necessary precautions consistent with standards of care or release them. Additionally, ICE would be immediately required to provide basic protections, such as providing ample soap and hand sanitizer, protocols for transporting people to hospitals and adequate testing and treatment for those with COVID-19 symptoms.

Orrick’s effort on the preliminary injunction was led by Orrick senior counsel William Alderman (pictured), partner Mark Mermelstein and associate Jake Routhier. Orrick is teaming on the case with the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center, Disability Rights Advocates, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Wilkie Farr & Gallagher.