Colombian asylum-seeker arrested at immigration hearing ordered freed from ICE custody

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — An asylum-seeker from Colombia involved in a class action against “inhumane conditions” at a San Francisco Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center must be immediately released from custody, a federal judge ordered Friday.

U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts granted a temporary restraining order that requires Colombian asylum-seeker Ligia Garcia to be released from detention at San Francisco’s Immigration Court, where she was held after a Thursday arrest following her immigration hearing.

The American Civil Liberties Union says that the 54-year-old Garcia spent over 24 hours in ICE custody, and reportedly suffers from high blood pressure and is hard of hearing in one ear.

Garcia is one of the four named plaintiffs in an ACLU class action filed Thursday who were either arrested or nearly arrested after an immigration hearing, and is one of two plaintiffs who remain in ICE custody.

Pitts, a Joe Biden appointee, determined that Garcia’s Fifth Amendment due process rights were violated by her detention and her release will have minimal impact on the government.

“Because Ms. Garcia has resided in the United States for 18 months — certainly long enough to ‘begin to develop … ties’ and become ‘a part of our population’ — the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections apply to that liberty interest,” Pitt wrote.

Pitt’s order also prevents her re-arrest and detention, “without first providing her with a pre-detention bond hearing before an immigration judge at which the government establishes by clear and convincing evidence that her detention is necessary to prevent her flight or to protect the public,” the judge said.

However, Pitts denied another named plaintiff, Yulisa Alvarado Ambrocio, a temporary restraining order because she is not currently detained. The ACLU said in its complaint that intervening attorneys negotiated with ICE agents against her arrest because she is currently breastfeeding an infant.

During that negotiation, ICE agents reportedly required Alvardo Ambrocio to check in every six months and did not guarantee she wouldn’t be arrested at her next hearing on Oct. 16.

According to the ACLU, one plaintiff, Martin Hernandez-Torres, is currently still detained, and has been since Wednesday — well over the 12-hour limit ICE waived in June, “without making changes to its operational procedures and practices necessary for longer-term incarceration consistent with constitutional requirements, such as providing people with a place to sleep, access to hygiene products, or access to prescribed medication,” the ACLU claims in its Thursday suit.

Hernandez-Torres and Garcia seek to represent a class of people “who are or will be subjected to inhumane and punitive conditions at 630 Sansome and ICE’s arbitrary and capricious policy permitting the detention of immigrants in temporary holding rooms for up to 72 hours,” the ACLU says.

“Arresting people when they come to court is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes, not a constitutional democracy. It undermines the very foundation of our legal system. The plaintiffs in this case include community members who are following the law by coming to court, only to be arrested. Coupled with the horrific conditions at 630 Sansome, these policies represent a profound breakdown of the rule of law,” Nisha Kashyap, Racial Justice Program Director for Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, said in a Thursday statement.

The ACLU is joined in filing the suit by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco and CARECEN, an immigrant legal services center.

The Thursday complaint follows an Aug. 1 petition for writ of habeas corpus filed for named plaintiff Carmen Aracely Pablo Sequen, who was similarly detained by ICE but released after a day.

The defendants of the case — including Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and Attorney General Pamela Bondi, among other San Francisco ICE officials — must show cause why a preliminary injunction should not be issued in favor of the plaintiffs at the next hearing on September 30 in San Jose.

Neither the ACLU or the San Francisco ICE field office immediately responded to a request for comment.