ICE will go to trial over the conditions in which it detains immigrants in New York.
New York, March 25 (EFE)
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will go to trial next May over the conditions in which it detains immigrants at its New York facility, which activists have described as “inhumane.”
The trial, which will begin on May 26 before Judge Lewis Kaplan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is in response to a lawsuit filed last August by the NGO Make the Road, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the law firm Wang Hecker. The plaintiffs allege that the immigrants were detained in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions and were denied access to legal counsel, according to the online newspaper The City.
The lawsuit claims that the federal agency violated the First Amendment of the Constitution by denying them access to legal representation, as well as the Fifth Amendment because they were subjected to “punitive conditions of confinement” without due process.
Many immigrants have been detained when they arrive for immigration court appointments or other legal status-related matters and subsequently taken to an ICE office at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, which houses several federal government agencies.
A video released last July by the New York Immigration Coalition showed a group of people crammed together, sleeping on the floor, and, according to reports, sharing two toilets with no privacy, no access to showers, and limited access to food and medicine.
ICE repeatedly denied members of Congress access to the building despite their right to visit federal facilities.
The Department of Homeland Security denied that the office was a detention center.
Following the continued arrests, a class-action lawsuit was filed in August on behalf of anyone who has been or will be detained at 26 Federal Plaza. Shortly thereafter, Judge Kaplan ordered ICE to improve the conditions for detainees.
In the months since the judge’s order, immigrant advocates and lawyers for President Donald Trump’s administration have exchanged information during the evidence-gathering process, taking statements from senior ICE officials and requesting records on detained immigrants, according to The City.
