ACLU Sues Federal Agencies for Records Unveiling Conditions at Federal Prisons and Tent-Like Structures Used to Detain Immigrants

LOS ANGELES — The American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, and Farella Braun + Martel LLP today filed a lawsuit against several federal agencies to obtain records revealing the policies and standards at federal prisons and temporary soft-sided facilities used by immigration authorities to detain people who are immigrants. The lawsuit comes weeks after the agencies – which include the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) – failed to respond to two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests submitted by ACLU SoCal in September 2024. The litigation is the ACLU’s latest effort to prepare for potential anti-immigrant actions in future presidential administrations.

Both ICE’s use of federal prisons run by BOP and CBP’s use of tent-like structures in Texas to detain immigrants have caused significant civil rights violations in the past, prompting several complaints and investigations. In 2018, the ACLU sued then-President Trump, ICE, and BOP for violating the constitutional rights of immigrants detained at a federal prison in California, arguing that detention at the BOP facility caused needless harm and suffering to immigrants who were held there. Media outlets have also reported on concerns regarding conditions of confinement at tented facilities in Texas, including lack of medical attention, sexual abuse, COVID-19 and lice outbreaks, and hunger, particularly for migrant children held at these soft-sided facilities.

“The law protects immigrants from punitive incarceration, yet immigration authorities have repeatedly used federal prisons and tented camps to detain people who are immigrants, subjecting them to inhumane conditions and civil rights violations,” said Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “Today’s filing is a critical step in understanding the depths of these violations, as well as how any future presidential administration could expand contracts with these facilities to facilitate a mass detention and deportation program.”

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, demands that BOP, DHS, and CBP comply with the Freedom of Information Act and immediately turn over the requested records to ACLU SoCal, which include:

• All contracts or agreements between ICE and BOP between January 1, 2017 through present regarding use of federal prisons run by the BOP to hold detained immigrants, as well as documents showing all detention standards of people in those facilities during the same period.

• CBP contracts or agreements in effect from January 1, 2019 through present, for temporary soft-sided facilities, including, but not limited to their construction and use, equipment, rent, utilities, and support services such as meals, medical care, childcare, and janitorial services.

• Documents from January 1, 2019 through present detailing all detention standards that have applied to people held in DHS custody at CBP’s temporary soft-sided facilities in Texas, as well as all inspection and investigative reports from DHS’s examinations of temporary soft-sided detention facilities under the auspices of CBP from January 1, 2019 to the present.

• CBP’s assessments of Department of Defense sites for additional temporary soft-sided facilities.

“Make no mistake: mass detention would threaten communities across the U.S., tearing apart immigrant families and the fabric of our nation,” said Eva Bitran, staff attorney at ACLU SoCal. “The public has a right to know how our government could expand immigrant detention by contracting federal prisons and soft-sided facilities known for their abusive conditions and pervasive civil rights violations.”

Earlier this month, the ACLU sued several federal immigration agencies for records detailing the infrastructure needed for a mass detention and deportation program. Advocates warn that additional contracts for BOP and soft-sided facilities will undoubtedly lead to further immigrants’ rights violations and could potentially lay the groundwork for a presidential administration to implement a mass detention and deportation campaign.

“Federal prisons and soft-sided facilities have been the source of myriad civil rights complaints and federal investigations in the past, yet little is known about the full extent of the conditions at these facilities,” said Jim Day, partner at Farella Braun + Martel LLP. “We are pleased to be working with such a great organization and assisting it with this important work.”

The filing is available here: https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-socal-v-bop-cbp-dhs-complaint-october-23-2024