A federal judge ruled last week that illegal immigrants have a constitutional right to a bed and a mattress, and ordered the Border Patrol to begin providing sleeping mats for every migrant detained for more than a few hours.
U.S. District Judge David C. Bury said evidence that many migrants were left sleeping on floors, while mats were piled up unused in nearby cells, convinced him that agents in southern Arizona were abusing their powers.
“The Court finds that the law and the facts clearly favor Plaintiffs’ positions that Defendants are violating Plaintiffs’ constitutional right to sleep,” the judge wrote in an injunction Friday. “Preliminary, the Court orders that clean bedding, which Defendants assert they are providing to all detainees, must include a mat and a Mylar blanket for all detainees being held longer than 12 hours.”
Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees the Border Patrol, declined to comment, citing the ongoing court case.
But the ruling will likely put severe stress on an immigration system already reeling under the weight of a new surge of illegal immigration, which has forced the Border Patrol to shift agents and stretch to try to process the complex new cases.
Immigrant rights advocates, who argued the case for unnamed illegal immigrants, said the ruling is a victory for human rights and a spanking for CBP.
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“Today is a victory for our plaintiffs, and a victory for the Constitution,” said Nora Preciado, a lawyer at the National Immigration Law Center, who said they’ll make sure the judge’s order is quickly implemented.
The case stemmed from conditions illegal immigrants said they faced when arrested and brought to CBP facilities in the Tucson region of Arizona.
Detention is supposed to be a short-term situation while the migrants are processed and transferred to another agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, either for further detention or release, under President Obama’s policies.
But complex cases can leave some illegal immigrants in CBP custody for longer than anticipated. About half are kept for less than a day, while 3 percent or so are kept for longer than three days, according to 2015 data from Tucson.
Photos released in the case showed illegal immigrants sleeping on floors, often close to toilets in the cells. The immigrants also complained that the temperatures were kept too low and the lights kept on.
Judge Bury said if they’re being held 12 hours or longer, they must be given beds with mattresses, mylar blankets and other care, such as a place to wash or clean up. And he said the Border Patrol’s guidelines for cell capacity are based on illegal immigrants who are standing or seated — not for when they’re sleeping on mats.
“Detainees need to lie down to sleep because they are detained at the Border Patrol stations in excess of 12 hours. The Court finds the holding-cell capacity numbers cannot accommodate the number of detainees being detained longer than twelve hours because detention of this duration requires them to lie down to sleep rather than sit up which means more space is needed,” the judge said.
He agreed with the Border Patrol that lights can be left on for safety purposes, but ordered agents to monitor the cell temperatures to make sure detainees don’t suffer extreme heat or cold.
Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, said humane conditions are important, but said CBP officials “don’t have the facilities now” and that following “this unreasonable order would be impossible without releasing hundreds of people a day.”
She urged the administration to appeal the ruling.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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