FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Victor Romero-Hernandez, Tel: 505-209-5812, Email: victor@innovationlawlab.org
Innovation Law Lab Files Lawsuit Demanding Transparency from ICE Over Detention Placement and Transfer Policies and Practices
Portland, OR – On Monday, Innovation Law Lab filed a lawsuit against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), demanding the release of critical information about ICE’s opaque policies and practices regarding its detention placement and transfer of noncitizens in its custody.
ICE arrests and detains hundreds of thousands of noncitizens each year within its vast network of immigration detention facilities. Many of those individuals are initially booked into, or eventually transferred to, detention facilities that are hundreds or thousands of miles away from the location of their arrest. Little is publicly known about ICE’s policies and process for deciding where to initially detain noncitizens in its custody, or why and where to subsequently transfer those individuals.
In May 2024, Innovation Law Lab submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to ICE, specifically seeking any published guidelines for the initial placement and subsequent transfers of individuals in its custody in ICE detention facilities. More than eight months later, ICE has failed to release any documents, prompting Monday’s lawsuit filed in the District Court for the District of Oregon by attorneys from Innovation Law Lab and the Law Office of Amber Qureshi, LLC.
“The current lack of transparency in ICE’s decision making process leaves families and legal representatives in the dark, and puts individuals’ well-being in jeopardy,” said Ian Philabaum, Innovation Law Lab’s Director of Legal Organizing. “Public disclosure is vital to holding ICE accountable for its decisions, particularly when it continues to detain people in unsafe and unlivable conditions at facilities like the Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia, NM - a facility that has consistently failed to meet basic standards of care, such as adequate staffing, medical treatment, and plumbing infrastructure.”
“Understanding how ICE decides where to detain or transfer individuals is critical for ensuring that detained individuals are treated humanely and that their rights are respected,” said Tess Hellgren, Director of Legal Advocacy at Innovation Law Lab. “Public access to ICE’s placement and transfer guidelines will allow individuals, families, legal advocates, and the broader community to better understand and challenge unjust practices within the immigration detention system.”
“Under the Freedom of Information Act, ICE is required to make important policy guidelines like those governing placement and transfer decisions of individuals in its custody available to the public on a proactive and ongoing basis,” said Amber Qureshi of the Law Office of Amber Qureshi. “This lawsuit is about ensuring transparency in ICE’s decision making processes that the public is entitled to under the law.”
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