Border Patrol Hit With Class Action Over Ariz. Cell Conditions

Last Wednesday, a class action lawsuit was filed against U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Arizona alleging that the agency holds people in dirty detention cells without food or medical care for days.

Lead plaintiffs, including two unnamed women and a Nicaraguan man who are represented by attorneys for various immigrant advocacy groups, alleged in their class action lawsuit that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) violates its own policy when it holds detainees for multiple nights. The class action lawsuit also alleges inhumane conditions, including overcrowded holding cells that are cold, inadequate amounts of food and water, poor or no medical services and cells that stay lit all night.

“Defendants leave holding cell lights on at all hours, and detained individuals must attempt to sleep on cold concrete floors and hard benches,” the plaintiffs allege in their class action lawsuit. “The cells are often so overcrowded that not all detainees are able to lie down and instead must sit or stand through the night.”

The American Immigration Council, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center and Morrison & Foerster LLP filed the class action lawsuit on behalf of the lead plaintiffs. The class action lawsuit was filed against R. Gil Kerlikowske, Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher as defendants.

According to the class action lawsuit, one of the women was initially housed at a border patrol facility in Casa Grande and had to sleep on the floor in a cold cell, where there was no privacy, and even when she used the toilet. The second woman alleges she had been given little food while detained, only “sporadically” provided with burritos, juice and cookies. The plaintiffs all allege that the water they were provided tasted foul and that they were denied toothpaste, soap and access to showers. Further, the class action lawsuit alleges that other needs, such as sanitary napkins, diapers, and medical care are not provided.

“The overall conditions of Defendants’ holding cells deny the humanity of those held within their walls, with such intolerable results as the denial of prescribed pain medication to a pregnant woman with a broken foot; the failure to provide medical attention to another woman suffering heavy vaginal bleeding; children as young as four years old stripped of warm clothing and left crying through the night from cold and hunger; detainees sick, exhausted, and shivering, pleading for guards to turn up the temperature; and the repeated response of agents that these conditions are the price to be paid for coming to United States,” states the class action lawsuit.

“In the words of one detainee: ‘It felt like we were being treated like animals and not as human beings.’ Other detainees characterized the experience as ‘inhumane and degrading,’ ‘humiliating,’ and ‘like a form of torture.’ Still another described ‘[t]he lack of food and sleep, and the cold and overcrowding’ as ‘constant and punishing,’” according to the class action lawsuit.

Border Patrol apprehended over 200,000 people in the Tucson area in the last two years, according to the complaint.

The plaintiffs are represented by Harold J. McElhinny, Kevin M. Coles, Elizabeth G. Balassone and Colette Reiner Mayer of Morrison & Foerster LLP, Linton Joaquin, Karen C. Tumlin and Nora A. Preciado of the National Immigration Law Center, Mary Kenney, Emily Creighton and Melissa Crow of the American Immigration Council, Victoria Lopez, Daniel J. Pochoda and James Duff Lyall of the ACLU Foundation of Arizona and Travis Silva of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area

The Tucson Border Patrol Class Action Lawsuit is Jane Doe #1, et al. v. Johnson, et al., Case No. 4:15-cv-00250, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.