A coalition of immigrant rights organizations filed a class-action lawsuit against the Trump Administration Thursday evening, challenging courthouse arrests of asylum seekers and detention conditions at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) San Francisco Field Office at 630 Sansome. The lawsuit says immigrants are sometimes held there for days in “punitive and inhumane” conditions while they wait to be transported to detention centers.
The suit, which, filed by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF), the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California (ACLU NorCal) and the Central American Resource Center of Northern California (CARECEN SF), contests recently implemented policies that allow ICE to make arrests at immigration court and to hold people in the field office’s cells for extended periods.
“We’re trying to do everything we can so that these policies that put people in impossible choices and have turned our immigration courts into a trap are vacated and stopped,” said Nisha Kashyap, Program Director for the LCCRSF. “People [should be able to] safely go to court without fear of arrest.”
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of four immigrants with pending cases, who have faced arrest and detention while going through immigration proceedings in Downtown San Francisco. As of Sept. 19, attorneys for the immigrants said that out of the two of the plaintiffs who were currently detained at 630 Sansome, one was already ordered released by a district judge. The other, who was held since Sept. 17 despite having cancer, high blood pressure and prostate issues, was transported to a hospital, after which he will likely return to detention.
Unlike previous petitions focused on individual clients, this case could have major implications for all immigrants facing proceedings within ICE’s San Francisco jurisdiction, as well as those currently detained or at risk of being held in the field office’s cells.
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. A hearing on class certification is scheduled for late October before Judge Casey Pitts, said Kashyap.
This is a developing story and will be updated with more information.