Advocates Decry Biden Administration’s Enchantment Preventing Order to Vaccinate Medically Weak Individuals in ICE Detention – YubaNet

Yesterday, the Biden administration took the surprising step of appealing a federal court order urging the US Immigration and Customs Service (ICE) to vaccinate medically vulnerable people in their care. The filing was made in Fraihat vs ICE, which challenges the inhuman and traumatic experience of ICE incarceration that affects tens of thousands across the country.

On June 23, Judge Jesus Bernal of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ordered the agency to provide all those in ICE custody with COVID-19 vaccines with medical risk factors that would reduce their risk for serious COVID-19. Increase complications. This followed several previous court orders admonishing ICE for systemic failures in its response to the pandemic, beginning with the April 2020 court injunction ordering ICE to identify those with risk factors in its care and seek release review and other procedures to limit the spread of COVID. introduce -19 in prisons.

“From a legal point of view, this appeal is disappointing. In terms of public health, it’s outrageous, “said Elizabeth Jordan, director of the Immigration Detention Accountability Project at the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center. “Judge Bernal’s order is in line with legal standards and the protection of people in ICE detention from the Delta variant by offering vaccines is something that the Biden administration enthusiastically accepts and does not fight tooth and nail should.”

“It is really appalling that ICE, a well-known superspreader agency, would try to overturn a court order recognizing their obligation to vaccinate the medically vulnerable who they send to jail. The Biden administration’s appeal completely contradicts its own rhetoric about the importance of vaccinations in ending this pandemic. It threatens the lives of thousands of people at increased medical risk at a time when a dangerous variant of COVID-19 is increasing across the country and more people are being sent to ICE detention, “said Rosa Lee Bichell, an attorney with Disability Rights Advocates. “This kind of disregard for human life underscores the importance of screening people for release from this unjust system, as the court ordered almost a year and a half ago.”

“The court only ordered that vaccines be offered because ICE had no real plan, which resulted in unacceptably low vaccination rates in these extremely high-risk environments,” said Veronica Salama, attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “The order gave ICE 30 days to vaccinate a few thousand high-risk people, which is a fairly simple proposition. But instead of fulfilling its responsibilities, ICE has chosen to fight the order as COVID cases rise again across the country and the ICE population is jailed. It’s hideous. ”

Fraihat v. ICE was submitted in August 2019 by the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center (CREEC), Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

Read more about the case Here.

The Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center (CREEC) is a non-profit membership organization whose aim is to ensure that everyone is fully and independently involved in the civil life of our nation without discrimination based on race, gender, disability, religion, national origin, age, sexual orientation can participate, or gender identity.https: //creeclaw.org/.

Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) was founded in 1993 and is the leading national not-for-profit legal center for disability rights. Its mission is to promote equality and equal opportunities for people with all types of disabilities nationwide. DRA represents people with the full spectrum of disabilities in complex, system-changing class action lawsuits. Thanks to the pioneering work of DRA, people with disabilities across the country have dramatically improved access to health care, employment, transportation, education, disaster risk reduction, elections, housing and juvenile justice.

A catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, the Southern Poverty Law Center works in partnership with communities to break down white supremacy, empower intersectional movements, and promote human rights for all people. More information is available at www.splcenter.org.

Orrick has 27 offices worldwide and focuses on serving the global technology, energy & infrastructure and finance sectors. Customers worldwide turn to Orrick’s teams for forward-looking commercial advice on transactions, litigation and compliance matters. https://www.orrick.com/de/Über-Uns.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP is an international law firm with around 850 lawyers with offices in New York, Washington, Houston, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Chicago, Paris, London, Frankfurt, Brussels, Milan and Rome. The company is headquartered in New York City at 787 Seventh Avenue. Tel: 212.728.8000. https://www.willkie.com/