Basank v. Decker

Background

Ten petitioners—Vasif “Vincent” Basank, Freddy Barrera Carrerro, Manuel Benitez Pineda, Miguel Angel Hernandez Balbuena, Latoya Legall, Carlos Martinez, Estanlig Mazariegos, Manuel Menendez, Antar Andres Pena, and Isidro Picazo Nicolas—were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in county jails in New Jersey. The Hudson, Bergen, and Essex County Jails had reported COVID-19 cases. The petitioners alleged that their medical conditions, including asthma, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, obesity, and respiratory problems, made them especially vulnerable to serious illness or death from the virus.

They filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging their detention and sought release. They also requested emergency relief under Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The court had previously issued a temporary restraining order and then considered whether to convert it into a preliminary injunction.

Severance

The respondents asked the court to divide the joint petition into ten separate habeas proceedings. The court denied that request. It found that the petitioners presented nearly identical legal and factual questions about protection from COVID-19, deliberate indifference to their medical needs, and whether release was justified. The court also found that the petitioners alleged shared harms arising from conditions at the three jails and that handling the claims together promoted fairness and efficient decision-making.

Mootness

Before the temporary restraining order was issued, the respondents had voluntarily released five petitioners: Basank, Benitez Pineda, Hernandez Balbuena, Legall, and Menendez. Because those petitioners were no longer in custody and had not shown a reasonable expectation that they would be detained again under the same conditions, the court held that their claims were moot. It therefore denied the preliminary-injunction request as moot as to those five petitioners.

The court held that the claims of the remaining five petitioners—Barrera Carrero, Martinez, Mazariegos, Pena, and Picazo Nicolas—were not moot. The respondents had emphasized their asserted authority and intention to arrest and detain those petitioners again. The court therefore found that a live dispute remained concerning whether the temporary restraining order should become a preliminary injunction.

Preliminary-injunction analysis

A preliminary injunction is an order issued before final judgment to prevent imminent harm while the case continues. The court required the petitioners to show irreparable harm, a likelihood of success on the merits, and that the balance of the equities and the public interest supported relief.

The court found irreparable harm because returning the remaining petitioners to the three jails created a serious risk to their health and constitutional rights. The jails had confirmed COVID-19 cases, and the court found that detention facilities created heightened risks of transmission. The petitioners’ medical conditions increased the risk of severe complications.

The court also found that the petitioners were likely to succeed on their substantive due process claim. Under the standard applied by the court, immigration detainees could establish deliberate indifference to serious medical needs by showing that officials knew or should have known of an excessive health risk and recklessly failed to take reasonable steps to reduce it. The court concluded that the respondents had not shown specific measures to identify, protect, and treat high-risk detainees. It also found inadequate evidence of social distancing, isolation, testing, and protection from exposure in the facilities.

The court emphasized that it was not treating Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines as strict constitutional rules. Instead, it considered the facilities’ failure to implement basic protective measures as strong evidence that the conditions posed an unreasonable risk of serious future harm to vulnerable detainees and that their specific medical needs were not being met. The court did not reach the petitioners’ separate argument that the conditions were punitive.

The court found that the balance of the equities and the public interest also favored release. It found no specific public-safety or flight risk that justified returning the petitioners to detention and concluded that reducing the number of people held in unsafe, confined conditions served public health and safety.

Alternative release authority and order

The court stated that, even if the preliminary-injunction requirements had not been met, it would release the remaining petitioners on bail while their habeas claims were being finally resolved. It found that their claims were substantial and that extraordinary health risks made release necessary to preserve an effective habeas remedy.

The court granted the request for a preliminary injunction. It ordered that the petitioners remain released, subject to conditions to be set by the court, and restrained the respondents from arresting them for civil immigration detention purposes unless they first obtained the court’s permission. The parties were ordered to meet and propose reasonable release conditions by April 24, 2020. The injunction was to remain in effect until further order of the court.