Ferreyra v. Decker

Background

Henry Ferreyra, Jefferson Denizard, Angel Perdomo Perdomo, and Rolando Oshane Villiers were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in connection with removal proceedings. They were held in the Bergen County Correctional Facility, Essex County Correctional Facility, and Orange County Correctional Facility, where detainees or staff had tested positive for COVID-19. Each petitioner had medical conditions that the court found increased the risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19. The petitioners filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 seeking release from custody and moved for emergency relief under Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

A fifth petitioner, Remigio Tapia Vilchis, was released before the motion for emergency relief was filed. The opinion therefore refers to the four remaining petitioners as the petitioners. The court had previously granted a temporary restraining order requiring their release and then considered whether to convert that relief into a preliminary injunction.

Severance and Venue

Decker asked the court to split the case into four separate habeas proceedings. The court denied that request. It held that the petitioners’ claims shared a common issue: whether Decker had failed to identify and protect people at heightened risk from COVID-19 in immigration detention. The court also found that splitting the case would be unfair and inefficient.

Decker also asked the court to dismiss him as a respondent and transfer the claims of Ferreyra, Perdomo Perdomo, and Villiers to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The court denied that request. It concluded that Decker, as Director of the New York Field Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was the federal official with the most immediate control over the non-federal facilities and was the proper respondent. The court further concluded that venue was proper in the Southern District of New York.

Preliminary-Injunction Standard

The court explained that a preliminary injunction requires a showing of irreparable harm, a likelihood of success on the merits, and that the balance of equities and public interest favor relief.

Irreparable Harm

The court found that the petitioners faced irreparable harm because detention exposed them to a serious risk of COVID-19 illness or death. It considered the conditions at the three jails, the difficulty of maintaining physical distance, the facilities’ cleaning and testing practices, and the petitioners’ medical conditions. The court also found irreparable harm based on the alleged threat to the petitioners’ constitutional rights.

Likelihood of Success on the Merits

The petitioners claimed that continued detention under the conditions at the three jails would violate their substantive due process rights. The court applied the deliberate-indifference standard, which permits a finding that officials violated due process when they knew or should have known that conditions posed an excessive health risk and recklessly failed to take reasonable steps to reduce that risk.

The court found that the petitioners were likely to succeed. Although Decker presented evidence of increased cleaning, screening, masks, testing, monitoring, and other measures, the court concluded that those measures did not adequately identify, protect, and treat high-risk detainees. The court found particular problems with the lack of specialized procedures at some facilities, the inability to maintain physical distance, insufficient cleaning and protective practices, cohorting potentially infected detainees, and the use of antibody testing at the Essex County Correctional Facility to make housing and quarantine decisions.

The court emphasized that it was not holding that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines were strict constitutional rules. It held instead that the facilities’ numerous shortcomings showed that the conditions were dangerous to high-risk 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.

Equities and Public Interest

The court held that the balance of equities and the public interest favored release. It found that the petitioners faced serious risks to their health and constitutional rights, while Decker had not identified a specific public-safety or flight risk that justified continued detention under unsafe conditions. The court also concluded that reducing the number of people held in confined conditions served public health and safety.

Disposition

The court granted the petitioners’ request for a preliminary injunction. It ordered that they remain released under the conditions already set by the court and restrained Decker from arresting them for civil immigration detention purposes unless he first obtained the court’s permission. The injunction was to remain in effect until further order of the court.

In the alternative, the court held that bail was appropriate under the Second Circuit’s decision in Mapp v. Reno while the habeas petition remained pending, with the same conditions imposed through the temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.