By Melissa Angell

Law360 (December 11, 2020, 7:12 PM EST) -- A D.C. federal judge on Thursday trimmed a suit brought by a group of immigrant detainees seeking to be released over COVID-19 health risks, while greenlighting certain claims by detained minors as well as allegations that the facilities' conditions violate due process rights.

In a 13-page opinion, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg declined to grant the petitioners' request to order the government to immediately improve conditions at the facilities or, alternatively, for the migrants to be released, finding protocols previously implemented to curb the spread of the coronavirus are sufficient.

"As to their request for the government to 'implement all protocols designed to prevent the transmission of COVID-19,' the court has already issued relief and thus petitioners have an adequate remedy," the opinion said.

Yet the judge also found that a group of migrants had "plainly" pointed to enough facts to sufficiently allege that conditions at the civil detention facilities violate the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Judge Boasberg then acknowledged his statement in July that whether the confinement conditions raise due process issues was "a close question."

"While the court ultimately determined that wholesale release was not warranted on the record existing at that stage of the litigation, its analysis necessarily relied on a determination that petitioners had stated a claim," the opinion said. "Dismissal is thus inappropriate."

In his decision, Judge Boasberg also kept intact allegations from a group of minors requesting that he find their custody is not in compliance with the Flores Settlement Agreement, which extends certain rights to minors detained in family residential centers.

But he pointed out that a California federal judge is currently overseeing the government's compliance with the FSA in another case, and already granted the relief the minor petitioners seek. In June, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release migrant children held in government custody, but extended the deadline to the end of July.

But Judge Boasberg decided to keep the minors' claims intact for now, even though his court "can likely offer no more."

Thursday's opinion marks the latest development in the petition brought under the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act by asylum-seekers over their confinement conditions.

Earlier in the year, the government was instructed to improve its coronavirus protocol for family residential centers, but Judge Boasberg declined to release more than 200 immigrant detainees held in facilities in Texas and Pennsylvania.

In his decision, Judge Boasberg found the detainees hadn't shown that being released was the only possible means of safeguarding their health amid the pandemic.

The government first moved to dismiss all of the petitioners' claims in May 2020, arguing the due process and APA claims are insufficiently pled and that the D.C. court lacks jurisdiction to address most of the allegations.

Representatives for both parties did not immediately respond to Law360's request for comment on Friday.

The migrant families are represented by Susan Baker Manning of Morgan Lewis, Manoj Govindaiah of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and Amy Maldanado.

The federal government is represented by Vanessa Molina of the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Immigration Litigation.

The case is O.M.G. et al. v. Wolf et al., case number 1:20-cv-00786, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

--Additional reporting by Suzanne Monyak and Alyssa Aquino. Editing by Philip Shea.

For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.