Federal immigration officials used to release nearly half of the immigrants they detained in the New York City area, allowing them to return to their homes and communities as their cases proceeded in U.S. immigration court—but not anymore. A lawsuit launched by the New York Civil Liberties Union and The Bronx Defenders this week alleges Immigration and Customs Enforcement has obliterated this process, keeping just about everyone it sweeps up in the area in detention. “From 2013 to June 2017, approximately 47 percent of those deemed to be low risk by the government were granted release,” the lawsuit said. “From June 2017 to September 2019, that figure plummeted to four percent.”
“Federal law requires ICE officers to make individualized custody determinations within 48 hours of arrest based on whether a person poses a flight risk or threat to public safety,” the New York Civil Liberties Union said in an accompanying blog post. “But one of the ways ICE is clamping down on releases is by rigging the risk assessment algorithm the agency uses to determine whether someone should be set free, allowed out on bond, or confined.” One guess how it’s been manipulated: “The tool can now only make one substantive recommendation: detention without bond.”
What this means is that more people have now been detained for longer periods of time in harmful conditions, the New York Civil Liberties Union continued. “The results of this can be tragic: in Hudson County Jail, where many members of the class are detained, six people died in the period of less than a year, including four suicides.” Prolonged detention also means less access to resources that may help their cases, such as legal assistance, media exposure (public outrage has sometimes forced officials into releasing detainees), and community advocates.
As BuzzFeed News reports, “The changes have contributed, in part, to a massive increase in the number of undocumented immigrants detained in ICE custody.” Last year, the Trump administration hit a grim record by imprisoning 52,398 people, the most ever. ICE, a truly lawless agency, hit this record in defiance of limits set by Congress. “ICE had requested funding for 52,000 detention beds,” HuffPost reported at the time, “but Congress in February only agreed to fund a daily average of around 45,000 beds till the end of September.”
The New York area has been one site of both escalating anti-immigrant enforcement under the Trump administration and escalating resistance to it. The New York Times reported in 2019 that the deportation from New York of immigrants with no criminal record, including vulnerable asylum-seekers, skyrocketed 226%. That same year, the state blocked ICE from detaining immigrants inside local courthouses unless its agents have a federal judicial warrant or order.
“A report by the Immigrant Defense Project said there were 178 arrests in New York state courthouses last year compared to 11 in 2016,” the AP reported, “and advocates have said immigrants are increasingly fearful to visit courts as a result." The group said, “Some were appearing in court for traffic violations before immigration agents grabbed them.” In one instance, ICE agents were stalking immigrants outside a human trafficking court in Queens. Now, in yet another tactic, ICE is cruelly keeping people who can be released in detention, this new lawsuit says.
“Separating families and illegally locking up immigrants has been a hallmark of the Trump administration, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to stop with this lawsuit,” Christopher Dunn, legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said. “Advocates have long-suspected ICE had a blanket no-release policy, and the data we uncovered finally confirms it. Prolonged detention separates families, risks people’s jobs and housing, and upends lives.”