Overview
Roman v. Wolf (U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, September 23, 2020): The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part a lower court preliminary injunction against conditions at an immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) processing center that placed detainees at risk of COVID-19. Failure to implement social distancing efforts, sanitation measures, and sufficient masks and soap placed detainees at unconstitutional risk of contracting COVID-19. Detainees brought a class action on behalf of noncitizens held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, arguing that conditions violated detainee’s Fifth Amendment due process rights. The Ninth Circuit agreed that the government likely failed to provide reasonably safe conditions but sent the case back to the district court to assess changed circumstances in the 5 months since the preliminary injunction was ordered. Read the full decision here.
View all cases in the Judicial Trends in Public Health – December 1, 2020.
View all cases under “Mitigating The Incidence & Severity of Injuries & Other Harms.”