The federal government has asked more than a dozen migrants a judge ordered released from detention last week to re-report and be detained by ICE, saying an appeals court has since put the lower court’s decision on hold.
Fat chance, says the ACLU, which said “any effort … to re-detain these petitioners would violate existing court orders.”
It’s the latest twist in the ongoing fight over illegal immigrants being detained amid the coronavirus crisis.
Activists nationwide have filed lawsuits demanding migrants be released, and a number of judges have complied, including one by Judge John E. Jones III, who ordered 20 migrants released because they were in at-risk categories for COVID-19.
ICE released 18 of them before an appeals court judge put Judge Jones’s decision on hold.
Now ICE says it wants those 18 to come back, since the lower court ruling is stayed.
The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Pennsylvania says that would be “cruel and irresponsible.”
“Any attempt to return Petitioners to detention, barring violation of the extant conditions, would be tantamount to a potential death sentence,” wrote Witold J. Walczak, an ACLU lawyer.
