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Law360 (May 7, 2020, 6:52 PM EDT) -- Bristol County detention officials in Massachusetts and others have likely violated the rights of immigration detainees in their care and are showing deliberate indifference to the devastating risks of COVID-19 within their facility, a federal judge ruled from the bench Thursday, according to lawyers in the case.
U.S. District Judge William G. Young, who in recent weeks has released 50 detainees from the facility, issued a preliminary injunction requiring Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson and jail superintendent Steven J. Souza to test all U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees and staff as soon as possible, according to a statement from Lawyers for Civil Rights, who filed the class action. Lawyers said the judge pinned likely violations on ICE and Bristol County.
Judge Young also ordered the facility to take no new immigration detainees, the lawyers said.
"These key measures are important steps in addressing the very real life-or-death threats experienced by immigrants at Sheriff Hodgson's facility," the lawyers said in a statement.
No written order had been filed as of Thursday afternoon.
Hodgson slammed the ruling in a Twitter post Thursday afternoon, saying Judge Young had "far exceeded his authority" in issuing the "unconstitutional" requirement that all employees of the facility be tested or not work.
Hodgson said his office had asked the U.S. Department of Justice representing him in the habeas case to seek an emergency stay pending an appeal to the First Circuit.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment, and a representative for the Bristol County Sheriff was not immediately available for comment.
Inmates in the Southeastern Massachusetts jail filed the suit March 27, claiming they were "literally trapped" in the crowded, unsanitary facility during the COVID-19 pandemic and feared for their lives.
In April, Judge Young certified the inmates as a class, saying the group had shown that the county jail lacks adequate protections against the coronavirus. One inmate at the jail has tested positive for COVID-19, along with eight correctional officers and two other staff members, according to the most recent weekly filing in a separate prisoner release case.
Three weeks ago, Hodgson — represented by lawyers from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts — asked Judge Young to stop releasing inmates, arguing that the population at the jail had fallen such that immigration detainees could observe social distancing. But the judge denied the request, calling the stay "a luxury" during the pandemic.
The detainees are represented by Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, Oren N. Nimni, Oren M. Sellstrom and Lauren Sampson of Lawyers for Civil Rights; and Reena Parikh, Muneer Ahmad and Michael J. Wishnie of Yale Law School.
The government is represented by Thomas E. Kanwit and Michael P. Sady of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts.
The case is Savino et al. v. Hodgson et al., case number 1:20-cv-10617, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
--Editing by Peter Rozovsky.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
