Ferreyra v. Decker

Background

Henry Ferreyra, Jefferson Denizard, Angel Perdomo Perdomo, and Rolando Oshane Villiers were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Bergen, Essex, and Orange County jails while their immigration-removal proceedings were pending. The opinion states that each petitioner had chronic medical conditions and faced a serious risk from COVID-19. The jails had reported COVID-19 cases among staff, detainees, or inmates.

The petitioners filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a law allowing people in federal custody to challenge detention or conditions of confinement. They then moved for a temporary restraining order, an emergency order that temporarily prevents specified conduct. They sought immediate release subject to reasonable conditions and an order preventing the government from arresting them during their immigration proceedings. A fifth petitioner, Remigio Tapia Vilchis, had already been released before the motion was filed and was not included among the petitioners seeking the temporary restraining order.

Severance

The respondents asked the court to split the joint petition into five separate habeas actions. Judge Torres denied that request. The court concluded that the petitioners raised nearly identical legal and factual questions about COVID-19 protections, medical risks, and whether release was justified. The court also relied on judicial economy, shared alleged harms, and the urgent need to decide the emergency motion quickly.

Venue and Respondents

The respondents argued that the petitioners’ immediate custodians were the county-jail wardens and that claims involving petitioners held in New Jersey belonged in the District of New Jersey. The court rejected those arguments. It held that Thomas Decker, the federal official with the most immediate control over the contract facilities, was a proper respondent and that the Southern District of New York was a proper venue for the claims.

The court dismissed Chad Wolf from the action. It reasoned that Wolf, the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, was a remote supervisory official who did not have immediate custody of the petitioners and was connected to them only through Decker.

Temporary Restraining Order

The court applied the standard for a preliminary injunction. The petitioners had to show irreparable harm, a likelihood of success on the merits, and that the balance of equities and public interest favored relief.

Irreparable harm. The court found that the petitioners faced a real and immediate risk of serious illness or death because COVID-19 was present in the facilities, detention conditions made social distancing difficult, and each petitioner had medical conditions that increased the danger of severe complications. The court also treated the alleged threat to their constitutional rights as irreparable harm.

Likelihood of success. The petitioners argued that keeping them in facilities where COVID-19 was present, without adequate protection for their health, violated the Fifth Amendment’s due-process guarantee. The court held that they were likely to succeed on their claim that the respondents knew or should have known that the conditions posed excessive risks to their health and that the petitioners’ specific medical needs were not being met.

The court acknowledged that the facilities had taken measures such as screening, cleaning, quarantine procedures, masks in some circumstances, and medical monitoring. But it found those measures insufficient for medically vulnerable detainees. The court cited the lack of clear protections for high-risk detainees, inadequate evidence that social distancing could be maintained, limited access to protective supplies, inconsistent sanitation, insufficient information and medical access, questionable cohorting practices, and the absence of evidence showing systematic testing.

The court did not decide the petitioners’ separate argument that their conditions were punitive. It decided only that they were likely to succeed on the due-process claim concerning the excessive health risk and unmet medical needs.

Balance of equities and public interest. The court found that the petitioners faced serious harm, while the respondents had not identified a specific public danger or flight risk that justified continued detention in unsafe conditions. It concluded that releasing civil immigration detainees under conditions would serve public health and safety during the COVID-19 crisis.

Relief and alternative bail ruling

The court granted the temporary restraining order. It ordered the respondents and the Bergen, Essex, and Orange County Correctional Facilities to release the four petitioners after release conditions were set. The parties were ordered to meet and propose conditions by 4:00 p.m. on April 27, 2020. The respondents were restrained from arresting the petitioners for civil immigration detention unless they first obtained the court’s permission.

The order was set to expire on May 11, 2020, at 10:45 a.m. The respondents were required to show cause by May 4, 2020, why the temporary restraining order should not be converted into a preliminary injunction, and the petitioners could respond by May 8, 2020.

As an alternative basis for release, the court held that it had authority to grant bail to habeas petitioners while their claims were pending. It found that the claims were substantial and that the extraordinary health circumstances made release necessary for the habeas remedy to remain effective.

Disposition

The respondents’ request to sever the action was denied. Their motion to dismiss Decker and transfer certain claims to the District of New Jersey was denied. Chad Wolf was dismissed from the action. The temporary restraining order was granted with the release and no-arrest provisions described above.