Barring detainees from remote court access kept their criminal proceedings alive longer than they needed to be, the judge said. (Photo via U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
Federal immigration authorities violated the constitutional rights of people held in a Pennsylvania detention center who were facing criminal charges in New Jersey by blocking their requests to attend court hearings virtually, a federal judge recently ruled.
Preventing some detainees at the Moshannon Valley Detention Center from participating in remote hearings prolonged their criminal proceedings and kept some defendants from being released sooner, U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie L. Haines ruled.
The decision is a win for the American Friends Service Committee and five detainees who sued federal officials in an effort to halt their practice of barring remote court access. The detention center is located in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, nearly 300 miles from Newark.
A plaintiff identified in court papers as Josefina Doe said in a statement from her attorneys that she is only home today because of the lawsuit. An asylum seeker first detained in 2022, she said the court action allowed her to access New Jersey courts for the first time, and her criminal charges got dismissed at her initial appearance.
“That allowed me to secure bond and be released. Every single person deserves the same chance,” she said.
The 20-page opinion was released Friday amid a spike in arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, a part of President Donald Trump’s effort to mass detain and deport undocumented migrants. Some detention centers around the country are already exceeding maximum capacity, according to CBS News.
The lawsuit, filed in September 2024, accuses the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — which oversees ICE — of refusing to allow some detainees remote access to their criminal proceedings, leaving them trapped in legal limbo or potentially worsening their legal situation. Instead, detainees were required to get permission for in-person transport to be arranged by New Jersey law enforcement — and just eight detainees were transported in the last two years, the plaintiffs alleged. Moshannon claimed New Jersey was responsible for processing its own cases and refused to come to Pennsylvania to transport the plaintiffs to court.
The Moshannon detention center, operated by Geo Group, holds more than 1,000 detainees, including 400 who are classified as “high-risk.” Geo Group is hoping to open a private immigration jail in Newark to expand the number of immigrants ICE can detain in the Garden State.
Some New Jersey detainees are jailed in Moshannon and other detention centers nationwide because of a state law banning public entities from contracting with ICE to detain immigrants. Private companies are still permitted to do so thanks to a federal judge’s ruling that New Jersey is appealing.
The Moshannon case focused on five former and current detainees who had criminal charges in New Jersey, including Josefina Doe, who was arrested in New Jersey following a domestic dispute. After she was released from a county jail, she was picked up by ICE, which held her at the Elizabeth Detention Center before transferring her to Moshannon.
She requested to attend her New Jersey hearing virtually but Moshannon officials told her there were “no resources,” so her case remained unresolved and her legal challenges were prolonged, the plaintiffs said. This violated her constitutional rights to due process and a speedy trial, she said.
Eventually, Moshannon officials granted her request to participate in the virtual hearing, and it did so for three other plaintiffs.
Attorneys for the Department of Homeland Security had argued that Moshannon lacks resources for virtual court appearances. Haines rejected that claim and said once ICE detained the plaintiffs and jailed them in Moshannon, ICE took on the responsibility of upholding their legal rights.
Haines noted that while the case was moot for some of the plaintiffs who have already been released from ICE custody, she issued a ruling because there “likely exists other aggrieved detainees.”
Records have revealed that ICE is eyeing at least three facilities in New Jersey to open as immigrant detention centers, including Delaney Hall in Newark, which would be run by Geo Group.
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