Judge Orders Immigration Detainees Held In Strafford County

CONCORD, NH — A federal judge has rejected a preliminary injunction request to release immigration detainees arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement who are being held at the Strafford County House of Corrections.

Chief Judge Landya McCafferty of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire made the decision Wednesday saying the low risk health detainees had failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success with their claims that immigration officials and the Strafford County House of Corrections had been indifferent to their medical needs.

In a news release Tuesday, Scott Murray, the U.S. Attorney for New Hampshire, said immigration officials detain people who have criminal convictions or previously have been ordered to be removed from the United States. Under federal law, these individuals often are required to be detained pending the resolution of any legal claims challenging their removal from the United States, the statement said. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a class action was filed on behalf of detainees in Strafford County. The lawsuit sought the release of the detainees from custody.

In May, the court provided bail hearings for detainees with high-risk medical conditions and 10 were released from custody. Five, however, were held.

County officials took several steps to ensure COVID-19 risks are limited including reducing visitors from outside, screening employees, providing face coverings for staffers, inmates, and visitors, quarantining new inmates, and halting transfers from facilities with infected populations. Because of these and other measures, the court concluded while conditions in Strafford were not perfect, the petitioners failed to show that government officials "recklessly failed to act with reasonable care to mitigate the risk COVID-19 presents to lower-risk detainees at Strafford."

The court will continue to conduct more proceedings as the legal process reaches its final conclusions.

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