COVID-19 Summary: This is a habeas and injunctive action brought on behalf of immigration detainees in the Folkston ICE Processing Center. The detainees requested release, arguing that continuing detention would violate their constitutional rights because they suffered from underlying medical conditions that made them especially vulnerable to COVID-19. The court refused to issue preliminary relief, and the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the case in August 2020. The parties filed certain redacted documents publicly, and on November 18, 2020, the case was dismissed.
On April 8, 2020, three detainees in the Folkston ICE Processing center brought this action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. Represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center and private counsel, the plaintiffs sued Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the ICE Field Office, and the Folkston ICE Processing Center. The plaintiffs sought a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and alleged violations of their Fifth Amendment Due Process rights. Specifically, they alleged that the conditions at Folkston, including the failure to provide adequate medical care, housing in close quarters, and unsanitary living spaces put the plaintiffs at a severe risk for contracting COVID-19. They alleged that their underlying medical conditions made them particularly vulnerable to serious illness or death from the virus, and that release was the only appropriate remedy.
The plaintiffs also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order to secure their immediate release at the same time they filed their complaint.
The original case (No. 4:20-cv-0069) was transferred in-district and received a new docket number (No. 5:20-cv-00046). The original case was assigned to Judge Christopher L. Ray, but the case was assigned to Judge Lisa Wood and Magistrate Judge Benjamin W. Cheesbro after the transfer.
On April 18, Judge Wood denied the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary relief. She explained that the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims because their evidence did not show that release was the only way to remedy unsafe conditions of detention. Judge Wood also found that the plaintiffs had failed to show that they had a cause of action because circuit precedent suggested that habeas petitions could not be used to challenge conditions of confinement. 2020 WL 1914916.
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss on May 1. On May 7, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint with more detail about the legal theories behind their Fifth Amendment claim, which the defendants moved to dismiss on May 18. On May 8, the plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction and an emergency writ of habeas corpus.
On July 8, Judge Wood denied the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction and writ of habeas corpus, finding that the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on their constitutional claims. The order reiterated that a habeas petition could not be used to challenge conditions of confinement and questioned whether any other cause of action existed. Assuming that one did, Judge Wood denied relief because the evidence about the Center's COVID response (or lack thereof) was conflicting, no evidence suggested that officials had been deliberately indifferent to the detainees' needs, and the plaintiffs had not established that the defendants had failed to comply with ICE guidelines that the plaintiffs said ICE had agreed to follow. 2020 WL 3839938.
Five days later, Magistrate Cheesbro took a "preliminary peek" at the defendants' motion to dismiss and found it contained sufficient merit to warrant granting a stay of discovery until the court ruled.
The plaintiffs filed a notice of voluntary dismissal on August 12, 2020, and the court dismissed the case the next day. The Clearinghouse does not know whether the parties settled out of court around the same time. Judge Wood stayed the case for 60 days for the parties to submit motions or agreements about docket filing restrictions, specifically the partial unsealing of certain documents.
On October 13, Judge Wood extended the stay to November 11 at the parties' request. On November 18, 2020, the case was dismissed.
Caitlin Kierum - 07/20/2020
Timothy Leake - 10/28/2020
Zofia Peach - 02/08/2021
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