A federal judge in Columbus turned down an emergency petition asking that eight detainees suffering a variety of health conditions be released from two privately run Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in south Georgia. 

After a two-and-a-half-hour teleconference hearing Friday, Middle District Judge Clay Land denied an emergency habeas petition arguing that the conditions at the Stewart and Irwin detention centers posed such a threat to the detainees' health and lives as to constitute cruel and unusual punishment.  

In a written opinion filed Friday afternoon, Land said precedent held that a habeas petition was not the appropriate way to address the detainees' concerns, and that—while there are narrow exceptions to the rule that only release from confinement may remedy such claims—theirs was not among them.  

"[I]f the present record supported petitioners' contention that they face substantial risk of serious physical harm and/or death from unconstitutional conditions that cannot be modified to reasonably eliminate those risks, the court may find petitioners' argument for habeas relief persuasive," Land wrote.

"But based upon the present record, the court does not find that the only way to remedy Petitioners' alleged constitutional violations is to release them from custody." 

Land emphasized the "narrow scope of today's ruling," and said the petitioners could "amend their motion to seek remedies other than release from detention." 

The habeas petition said the detainees at the Stewart County Detention Center, where two detainees have confirmed cases of COVID-19, and Irwin County Detention Center, with one confirmed case, suffer a variety of conditions making them particularly susceptible to the disease, including diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and asthma. Some have histories of repeated medical problems requiring surgical intervention.

Lawyers from the Southern Poverty Law Center, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton filed the emergency petition Tuesday; they have also filed a similar petition in Georgia's Southern District on behalf of three detainees at the Folkston ICE Processing Center.

The Stewart facility is operated by CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corp. of America; Irwin is run by LaSalle Corrections, and Folkston is a GEO Group facility. 

An attorney with the SPLC said the ruling boded ill for detainees at the detention centers.

"These detention centers are ticking time bombs ready to blow if the federal government does not take action immediately," said Rebecca Cassler of the center's Immigrant Justice Project in a statement.

"People are already sick. And between the despicable conditions of these facilities, lack of adequate medical care and the health challenges these people already face, there is little doubt it will soon turn into a complete catastrophe," she said.

The habeas petition said the detainees are being exposed to a potentially deadly disease that even stringent containment measures have failed to contain in the outside world.

"Once a disease is introduced into a jail, prison, or detention facility, it spreads faster than under most other circumstances due to overcrowding, poor sanitation and hygiene, and lack of access to adequate medical services," it said. 

"For these same reasons, the outbreak is harder to control," the petition said. "The severe outbreaks of COVID-19 in congregate environments, such as cruise ships and nursing homes, illustrate just how rapidly and widely COVID-19 would rip through an ICE detention facility." 

It cited expert advisers from the Department of Health and Human Services, who "describe a 'tinderbox' scenario where a rapid outbreak inside a facility would result in the hospitalization of multiple detained people in a short period of time, which would then spread the virus to the surrounding community and create a demand for ventilators far exceeding the supply."

On Friday Land convened a teleconference hearing, during which he and Kilpatrick attorney Amanda Brouillette grilled the wardens at Stewart and Irwin over their populations, conditions and the procedures they've instituted to safeguard detainees and staff. 

ICE and the wardens are represented by the Department of Justice; Amelia Helmick of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Columbus had little to say, maintaining that the court had no jurisdiction to take a decision, such as whom ICE detains, from the executive branch "and replace it with the judgment of the court."

Russell Washburn, who just took over as warden at Stewart, said the population at the 1,900-bed facility is down about 55% to 1,211 detainees.

According to the ICE website, there were two confirmed cases at Stewart, but Washburn said there were five active cases, and that another 30 people were in segregation after having been exposed to those individuals and were being tested regularly. 

About 43 are in the high-risk cohort: over 60 years old, or with conditions such as asthma or heart disease. 

Washburn said that soap and hand sanitizer was readily available and that the staff was enforcing social distancing requirements 24/7.

Brouillette asked whether that included when detainees slept, asking whether they used bunk beds and, if so, how they were able to stay six feet apart when going to bed or getting up at night. 

Washburn said he wasn't certain they had addressed that issue, and Land inquired whether,  given the reduced population, it might be possible to alternate beds to maintain the proper distance.  

Washburn said he thought so; he also said that all new arrivals are screened on intake for COVID-19 symptoms, and that very few new arrivals are coming in these days. 

Warden David Paulk of the Irwin facility said his capacity was 1,296, with a current population of 699, which includes a few county inmates who are housed separately.

Irwin has one confirmed case, he said, while a transport officer has also tested positive for the virus.

Paulk also said his staff was enforcing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, and had been medically screening new arrivals routinely even before the outbreak. 

According to its website, ICE began screening detainees in March to identify and evaluate those with a high vulnerability to the disease and had released more than 160 detainees who were older than 60 or pregnant.

It said it is expanding its evaluations to other vulnerable populations, evaluating detainees for release and limiting new arrests. According to the ICE website, the national detainee population dropped by more than 4,000 since March 1.