Judge rejects ICE detainees’ suit on protective gear
A federal judge says immigrants in government custody are not entitled — at least not for now — to gloves and other protective equipment when performing mandatory daily cleaning of their living quarters.
Although the detainees have shown that “their health is at stake” from possible exposure to the coronavirus, they have not yet proved the need for a court order requiring the private contractor that runs the facility to share scarce protective gear with them, said U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal of Los Angeles.
“Assuming adequate supplies for all, it would almost certainly be in the public interest to grant relief ” and order the contractor to supply the equipment, Bernal said Wednesday. But he said the detainees “simply do not make a case that this is the reality in midApril 2020, when the country is at near peak resource utilization, and even frontline health care workers have at times struggled to secure PPE,” or personal protective equipment.
The suit was filed by inmates at Adelanto (San Bernardino County) and also covers detainees at 11 other facilities run by the GEO Group under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including Mesa Verde in Bakersfield. They are in custody while awaiting hearings on their legal status or possible deportation.
In recent weeks, federal judges have ordered ICE to release medically vulnerable detainees to the custody of friends and relatives because of the dangers of virus exposure in the crowded facilities. U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney of San Francisco has ordered the releases of six inmates, three of them to homes in the Bay Area, and Bernal ordered six detainees freed from Adelanto on April 10.
Bernal has also allowed thousands of ICE detainees nationwide to proceed with a classaction suit accusing the government of failing to provide adequate health care.
His latest order arose from a suit saying GEO has required detainees, since the outbreak of the coronavirus, to clean up their housing units at least once a day, without providing enough sanitary ingredients or any protective clothing.
The suit specifically seeks court orders for gloves and gowns. Bernal said in his order that GEO had been required by federal rules to provide face masks as of April 10, but that it was not clear whether the contractor was complying. But he denied a temporary restraining order to require immediate supplies of gloves and gowns.
The judge said he was “hesitant to enter an injunction forcing a reallocation of limited PPE resources” in GEO facilities. “GEO’s current distribution of PPE is likely calculated to reduce the overall likelihood of a facility outbreak,” he said. He also said GEO had offered evidence that it has encountered supply shortages and shipment delays when attempting to acquire more protective equipment.
“The court hopes that as PPE becomes more widely available,” GEO can remove any shortcomings it now has in meeting federal standards, Bernal said.
Daniel Charest, a lawyer for the detainees, told the online legal publication Law360 that the ruling was disappointing but at least acknowledged that they were being exposed to harm by the mandatory cleanup duties.
“The fact that they couldn’t take the forced laborers off the work details and still operate safely shows you just how much of the work that GEO is supposed to be doing that they push off on the detainees,” Charest said.