Vulnerable Immigrants Freed from Jail During the COVID-19 Crisis

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) warehouses many immigrants in Michigan jails while seeking to deport them from the country. During a pandemic, this practice was not just inhumane, it could be deadly, particularly for people who are older or have medical vulnerabilities. People in jails were crowded together in unsanitary conditions with no ability to socially distance or protect themselves from the virus, and medical care in jails is notoriously inadequate for people with chronic conditions. In 2020 the ACLU sued ICE, arguing that keeping immigrants with vulnerabilities locked up during the pandemic violates their constitutional right to safe conditions of confinement. Judge Judith Levy agreed, certified a class of immigration detainees held at the Calhoun County Jail, and adopted a bail application process to decide whether vulnerable class members should remain locked up there. In 2020 and 2021, over 50 medically frail people were freed through the case. Efforts to settle the case in 2022 and 2023 were unsuccessful, and active litigation in the case resumed in April 2024. ICE is now taking the position that it should be allowed to redetain the medically frail people who were ordered released during the pandemic, even though Calhoun has not provided the COVID-19 vaccine to any immigration detainee since May 2023 and those who have been released have been living safely in the community for years. We have asked the Court for leave to amend in order to argue that medical care in the jail remains unconstitutionally inadequate, and that because immigration detention is permissible only to prevent flight or protect the public, people whom the court has individually determined not to be a flight risk or danger and who have been living in the community for years cannot be redetained without a hearing. (Malam v. Adducci; ACLU of Michigan Attorneys Miriam Aukerman, Ramis Wadood, Ewurama Appiagyei-Dankah, Syeda Davidson, Dan Korobkin, Monica Andrade, Elaine Lewis, and Rohit Rajan; National ACLU Attorneys Anand Balakrishnan, My Khanh Ngo, Eunice Cho, and Michael Tan; Cooperating Attorneys Jeannie Rhee, Mark Mendelson, Johan Tatoy, and Tanaz Moghadam of Paul Weiss.)