A Lengthy Island federal decide blasted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for ignoring court docket orders to launch a Jamaican immigrant married to a U.S. citizen whom ICE detained for days inside a “putrid and cramped” holding cell in Lengthy Island.
Contained in the cell, which lacked bedding and was supposed to carry just one individual briefly, Clarke fought for sleep, crammed on the cell’s filthy ground as lights blared 24 hours a day overhead, in accordance with Decide Brown.
Circumstances turned rancid contained in the cell, which lacked entry to showers or hygienic provides and contained an open bathroom, Decide Brown wrote.
The cell was poorly heated, and the detainees suffered as temperatures at evening plummeted to 21 levels Fahrenheit, the decide wrote.
Clarke, who’s making use of for citizenship and had submitted fingerprinting earlier within the day when ICE brokers snatched him, was briefly dropped at a Nassau County jail on Dec. 6, the place he loved “relatively humane treatment” earlier than he was instantly thrust again into the fetid Central Islip holding cell on Dec. 9, in accordance with Brown.
In Thursday’s memo, Brown shared the testimony of one other detainee, who described a cell just like the one during which Clarke was held as being solely six ft by six ft in diameter, and the place detainees slept huddled round a rest room that reeked of urine.
At a listening to Dec. 11 — throughout which Clarke was pressured to take part by telephone — a decide ordered his rapid launch on bail, however ICE held him in a single day earlier than releasing him the next day, Brown wrote.
Clarke entered the nation legally with a Jamaican passport, however continued to work within the nation after his visa expired in 2018, court docket paperwork present.
He married a U.S. citizen in 2023 and commenced the applying to develop into a everlasting resident earlier this 12 months, throughout which he admitted to staying within the nation after his visa expired — a violation that’s not a felony offense, Brown famous in Thursday’s memo.
Decide Brown ordered ICE to seem at a Jan. 12 listening to to point out why the company shouldn’t be held in contempt and defend accusations that the company not solely defied the court docket order to launch Clarke, however withheld proof of the abysmal circumstances during which he was detained.
Messages looking for remark from the Division of Homeland Safety weren’t instantly returned.
