April, 29 2020, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Resha Swanson, Adelante Alabama Worker Center, (573) 855-1766, resha@adelantealabama.org
Jen Nessel, Center for Constitutional Rights, (212) 614-6449, jnessel@ccrjustice.org
Sirine Shebaya, National Immigration Project, (202) 656-4788, sshebaya@nipnlg.org
Medically Vulnerable Immigrants Seek Emergency Release from ICE Detention in Alabama
Filing Follows COVID-19 Outbreaks and Similar Demands for Release Nationwide.
WASHINGTON
Late yesterday, Adelante Alabama Worker Center, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild (NIP-NLG) filed an emergency petition and temporary restraining order for the release of medically vulnerable people currently held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. The filing seeks the release of 18 people being detained in Unit 9 of the Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden, Alabama, and cites their severe risk of contracting the novel coronavirus COVID-19 and developing life-threatening symptoms. Other medically vulnerable immigrants have filed petitions for release in other states, with courts ordering releases from other ICE detention centers. The filings in each case warn that the near-certainty of coronavirus outbreaks in these facilities renders the continued detention of these individuals a potential death sentence for a civil immigration violation.
"I am scared of dying in here," said Bakhodir Madjitov, who has been detained since 2017. "What will my family do? When ICE suddenly detained me, my wife Madina was 39 weeks pregnant with my littlest child.... I have only ever seen my son once, through the glass at a detention center. I have never been able to hold him in my arms. My wife and three little boys were barely managing without me before COVID-19. Now, everything is much worse. Madina lost her job due to the pandemic, and now she says she has no idea how she will take care of the children."
The complaint and the declarations made by those imprisoned describe not only the impossibility of social distancing inside the Etowah jail--where up to four people are held in cramped six-by-six-foot cells--but also the growing issue of overcrowding, worsened by staff combining people being detained by ICE from two units to a single unit. New people continue to be brought into the jail, including some reportedly exposed to COVID-19. More than 100 people now share a single unit with communal showers, dining, and recreation areas. Toilets are inside the cells with no partition. Detained individuals report receiving inadequate or no cleaning and hygiene supplies, despite being required to clean their own cells. Some have used shampoo to clean cells. Those assigned to clean common areas have not been provided with protective gear.
"Etowah County Detention Center has built a national reputation as ICE's warehouse for prolonged detention, with conditions so abysmal they have compelled people to lose hope and accept deportation," Jessica Vosburgh, Executive and Legal Director at Adelante explained. "In the wake of COVID-19, the individuals caged in Etowah are not only fighting against their deportations, they are fighting for their lives."
According to declarations filed by infectious disease and public health experts from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Yale, and Tulane, it is impossible for Etowah to comply with CDC guidelines around social distancing, quarantine, and treatment, and the jail's already inadequate medical facilities will inevitably be overwhelmed.
The 18 people filing this petition with the court, many of whom are seeking protection in the U.S. from violence, torture or persecution in their home countries, report extensive pre-existing health conditions that make them especially vulnerable to developing life-threatening COVID-19 infections. Such conditions include asthma so severe the prisoner has coughed up blood, heart disease, kidney disease, cancer, chronic bronchitis and other lung conditions, and diabetes. Many of them take numerous medications to control pre-existing health issues, including some that suppress their immune systems. Even before the pandemic, ongoing health problems were allowed to fester with no or inadequate treatment; since the outbreak, detainees report that medical checkups for chronic conditions have been suspended. Attorneys say coronavirus has exacerbated already dire conditions in ICE facilities.
"While this suit seeks to protect these individuals from lethal harm, it is also part of a broader effort to expose the horrid conditions in ICE detention facilities and the vast, illegitimate detention system and cruel and arbitrary punitive reflex that pervades in this country," said Baher Azmy, Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Local advocacy groups such as Shut Down Etowah are also calling for the release of ICE detainees, responding with several letters to Etowah County Sheriff Jonathan Horton and regional ICE Director Dianne Witte and staging a caravan protest outside the facility last week. Shut Down Etowah Organizer Lisa Moyer says, "This petition isn't just about securing the freedom of the 18 people detained in Unit 9. It's about every person trapped inside of Etowah County Detention Center, desperately hoping that the air they breathe won't put them in a casket." Shut Down Etowah has teamed up with regional bond organization Etowah Freedom Fund to start a COVID-19 emergency fund that will be used to provide commissary and bail money to people in detention.
"ICE's insistence on continuing to detain medically vulnerable people during a global pandemic is cruel and dangerous, and it shines a light on how needless immigration detention is in the first place," said Sirine Shebaya, Executive Director of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. "Through this litigation, we hope to obtain release for our clients, but also to raise public awareness about the inhumane manner in which people in ICE detention are treated, and the bloated system of mass incarceration our immigration authorities are using taxpayer money to fund, in the face of all evidence that it is unnecessary and harmful to our communities."
The complaint filed today argues that the risk of death for a civil immigration violation--due to grossly inadequate sanitation and healthcare, along with the impossibility of following CDC guidelines in such over-crowded conditions--violates constitutional protections ensuring adequate care and preventing deliberate indifference to obvious medical risks. It also argues that those in the detention center are being denied their constitutional right to counsel, as visits are banned and the facilities lack practical means of placing confidential calls to lawyers.
Jeremy Jong in New Orleans is co-counsel in the case.
The case is Williams v. Horton and was filed in federal court in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Link to Petition: https://adelantealabama.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Williams-et-al-Etowah-COVID-Complaint_redacted.pdf
Link to TRO: https://adelantealabama.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Williams-et-al-Etowah-COVID-TRO-Memo_redacted.pdf
For more information as well as today's filings, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights' case page.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
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As AI Data Centers Disrupt US Cities, Wisconsin Woman Violently Arrested After Speaking Out
"Police should not be allowed to violently detain a person who is nonviolently exercising their free speech. This used to be something all Americans agreed on," said one state senator.
Dec 05, 2025
Public opposition to artificial intelligence data centers—and the push by corporations and officials to move forward with their construction anyway—were vividly illustrated in a viral video this week of a woman who was arrested after speaking out against a proposed data center in her community in Wisconsin.
Christine Le Jeune, a member of Great Lakes Neighbors United in Port Washington, spoke at a Common Council meeting in the town on Tuesday evening. The meeting was not focused on the recently approved $15 million "Lighthouse" data center set to be built a mile from downtown Port Washington—part of a project developed by Vantage Data Centers for OpenAI and Oracle—but the first 30 minutes were taken up by members of the public who spoke out against the project.
As CNBC reported last month, more than 1,000 people signed a petition calling on Port Washington officials to obtain voter approval before entering into the deal, but the Common Council and a review board went ahead with creating a Tax Incremental District for the project without public input. The data center still requires other approvals to officially move forward.
"We will not continue to be silenced and ignored while our beautiful and pristine city is taken away from us and handed over to a corporation intent on extracting as many resources as they can regardless of the impact on the people who live here," said Le Jeune. "Most leaders would have tabled the issue after receiving public input and providing sufficient notice. But you did nothing, and you laughed about it."
Le Jeune spoke for her allotted three minutes and went slightly over the time limit. She then chanted, "Recall, recall, recall!" at members of the Common Council as other community members applauded.
Police Chief Kevin Hingiss then approached Le Jeune while she was sitting in her seat, listening to the next speaker, and asked her to leave.
She refused, and another officer approached her before a chaotic scene broke out.
Last night, the Port Washington Police Department used excessive force to arrest a woman for speaking up against the Vantage data center.
We are thankful that this local advocate is safe, and we condemn the Port Washington PD’s actions in the strongest possible terms. SHAME! pic.twitter.com/35dhEKvojL
— Our Wisconsin Revolution (@OurWisconsinRev) December 3, 2025
City officials had told attendees not to speak out of order during the meeting, and Le Jeune acknowledged that she and others had spoken out of turn at times.
But she told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that she had been surprised by the police officers' demand that she leave, and by the eventual violence of the incident, with officers physically removing her from her seat and dragging her and two other people across the floor.
The two other residents had approached Le Jeune to protest the officers' actions.
"I never expected something like that to happen in a meeting. It was very strange," she told the Journal Sentinel. "Suddenly this police chief showed up in front of me, and all I was thinking was: 'Wait, what is going on? Why is he interrupting her speech? ... It felt like [police] were kind of primed tonight to pounce."
State Sen. Chris Larson (D-7) said that "police should not be allowed to violently detain a person who is nonviolently exercising their free speech. This used to be something all Americans agreed on."
William Walter, executive director of Our Wisconsin Revolution, filmed the arrest and told ABC News affiliate WISN, "I've never seen a response like that in my life."
"What I did see was a lot of members of the Port Washington community who are really frustrated that they're being ignored and they're being dismissed by their elected officials," he said.
AI data centers, he added, "will impact you. They'll impact your friends, your family, your neighbors, your parents, your children. These are the kinds of things that are going to be dictating the future of Wisconsin, not just for the next couple of years but for the next decade, the next 50 years."
After Le Jeune's arrest, another resident, Dawn Stacey, denounced the Common Council members for allowing the aggressive arrest.
"We have so many people who have these concerns about this data center," said Stacey. “Are we being heard by the Common Council? No we’re not. Instead of being heard we have people being dragged out of the room.”
“For democracy to thrive, we need to have respect between public servants and the people who they serve," she added.
Vantage has distributed flyers in Port Washington, which has a population of 17,000, promising residents 330 full-time jobs after construction. But as CNBC reported, "Data centers don’t tend to create a lot of long-lasting jobs."
Another project in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin hired 3,000 construction workers and foresees 500 employees, while McKinsey said a data center it is planning would need 1,500 people for construction but only around 50 for "steady-state operations."
Residents in Port Washington have also raised concerns about the data center's impact on the environment, including through its water use, the potential for exploding utility prices for residents, and the overall purpose of advancing AI.
As Common Dreams reported Thursday, the development of data centers has caused a rapid surge in consumers' electricity bills, with costs rising more than 250% in just five years. Vantage has claimed its center will run on 70% renewable energy, but more than half of the electricity used to power data center campuses so far has come from fossil fuels, raising concerns that the expansion of the facilities will worsen the climate emergency.
A recent Morning Consult poll found that a rapidly growing number of Americans support a ban on AI data centers in their surrounding areas—41% said they would support a ban in the survey taken in late November, compared to 37% in October.
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Critics Warn of ‘Catastrophic’ Threat If Netflix Acquires Warner Bros.
"The threat of this merger in any form is an alarming escalation in a consolidation crisis that threatens the entire entertainment industry, the public it serves, and—potentially—the First Amendment itself," warned actress Jane Fonda.
Dec 05, 2025
Netflix announced a deal Friday to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s film studio and streaming business for $83 billion, a merger that—if approved by the Trump administration—would create a media behemoth that critics say threatens industry competition, higher costs for consumers, the rights of entertainment workers, and democracy.
Netflix, the largest streaming company in the world, and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), owner of the third-largest streaming platform HBO Max, unveiled the proposed agreement after a closely watched bidding war that included Paramount Skydance, the company that the Trump administration reportedly favored to acquire WBD. Paramount is owned by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Republican megadonor Larry Ellison—a close ally of President Donald Trump.
David Ellison reportedly met with Trump administration officials on Thursday to "press his case" against Netflix's pending acquisition of WBD. An unnamed senior official told CNBC on Friday that the Trump administration is treating the Netflix-WBD deal with "heavy skepticism."
While some expressed relief that Paramount appears—at least for now—to have lost the bid for Warner Bros., antitrust advocates argued such a view overlooks the much broader and more serious threat of corporate consolidation.
"Does anyone think Netflix won’t do what Trump wants to get their deal through?" asked Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project. "The threat to democracy isn’t the Ellisons, it’s media consolidation."
The American Prospect's David Dayen expressed a similar sentiment, writing on social media: "Keeping WBD out of Paramount's hands is good. Putting it in Netflix's is still unlawful consolidation though. This is the #1 streamer merging with #3. State enforcers should speak up."
"If we don’t speak now, we may have no industry—and no democracy—left to defend."
In a newsletter post following news of the merger agreement, Stoller argued the Netflix-WBD deal is plainly illegal under the Clayton Antitrust Act and "a recipe for monopolization."
"The ideal scenario now is a trial that puts the secrets of Hollywood executives and financiers on display, and crushes the financiers who think mergers are the only move in business," Stoller wrote. "Then Hollywood can get back to the business of making good TV shows and movies."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said that "this deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare."
"A Netflix-Warner Bros. would create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market," said Warren. "It could force you into higher prices, fewer choices over what and how you watch, and may put American workers at risk."
"Under Donald Trump, the antitrust review process has also become a cesspool of political favoritism and corruption," the senator continued. "The Justice Department must enforce our nation’s anti-monopoly laws fairly and transparently—not use the Warner Bros. deal review to invite influence-peddling and bribery."
Ahead of the announcement, major figures in the entertainment industry sounded alarm over the possibility of a Netflix takeover of WBD. In a letter to members of Congress on Thursday, a group of film producers warned that Neflix would "effectively hold a noose around the theatrical marketplace" if it acquired WBD.
The Writers’ Guild of America, which represents film and TV writers, has said it would oppose WBD merging with any "major studio or streamer," warning it "would be a disaster for writers, for consumers, and for competition."
"Merger after merger in the media industry has harmed workers, diminished competition and free speech, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars better invested in organic growth," the union said in a recent statement.
Jane Fonda, the renowned actress and activist, wrote Thursday that "the threat of this merger in any form is an alarming escalation in a consolidation crisis that threatens the entire entertainment industry, the public it serves, and—potentially—the First Amendment itself."
"Consolidation at this scale would be catastrophic for an industry built on free expression, for the creative workers who power it, and for consumers who depend on a free, independent media ecosystem to understand the world," Fonda wrote. "It will mean fewer jobs, fewer opportunities to sell work, fewer creative risks, fewer news sources, and far less diversity in the stories Americans get to hear."
"If we don’t speak now, we may have no industry—and no democracy—left to defend," she added.
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National Park Service Grants Free Access on Trump's Birthday—And Ends It for Juneteenth, MLK Day
Critics have ripped the decisions as "truly disgusting" and "literally the sort of thing dictators do."
Dec 05, 2025
"Why is MLK Day not worthy of a fee-free day anymore?"
That's what Kati Schmidt, communications director for the National Parks Conservation Association, wondered in an email to SFGATE, which reported Thursday on the National Park Service's recently announced free admission days for 2026.
"That has become a day of service throughout the country as well as celebrating an American hero who has several park units celebrating his legacy," Schmidt noted of the federal holiday honoring Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. each January.
In addition to MLK Day, three other previously free days were left off the US Department of the Interior's announcement last week about "resident-only patriotic fee-free days." Visitors will now have to pay park fees on National Public Lands Day, the anniversary of the Great American Outdoors Act—which President Donald Trump signed in 2020—and Juneteenth.
cool that the official position of the administration appears to be that black people don’t really count as americans
[image or embed]
— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) December 5, 2025 at 8:20 AM
In 2021, Congress passed and then-President Joe Biden signed legislation designating Juneteenth as a federal holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. After returning to the White House in January, Trump declined to recognize it on this past June 19.
As SFGATE reported:
"This policy shift is deeply concerning," said Tyrhee Moore, the executive director of Soul Trak Outdoors, a nonprofit that connects urban communities of color to the outdoors. "Removing free-entry days on MLK Day and Juneteenth sends a troubling message about who our national parks are for. These holidays hold profound cultural and historical significance for Black communities, and eliminating them as access points feels like a direct targeting of the very groups who already face systemic barriers to the outdoors."
Moore told SFGATE that his organization works to push back against "these kinds of systemic attempts that disguise exclusion as administrative or political decisions."
"Policies like this reinforce inequalities around access and visibly show how systems can create obstacles that keep communities of color from feeling welcomed in public spaces," he said.
Olivia Juarez, public land program director at the advocacy group GreenLatinos, said in a statement that "we condemn the omission of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, Juneteenth, National Public Lands Day, and the anniversary of the Great American Outdoors Act from the list of free entrance days."
"The Great American Outdoors Act permanently funded the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which enhances outdoor recreation access for all people from national public lands to neighborhood parks," she pointed out. "These observances are patriotic days that celebrate freedom and safety in the outdoors. They should be celebrated as such by removing a simple cost barrier that can make parks more accessible to low-income households."
Other critics have ripped the free day decisions as "truly disgusting" and "literally the sort of thing dictators do."
Journalist Jennifer Schulze said: "I love our national parks but don't go on his birthday. Find a state park to visit instead."
Along with the free admission changes, the Trump administration is under fire for putting the president's face on the new "America the Beautiful" annual passes—a display that may be illegal—and for hiking prices for foreign visitors to national parks.
Utah-based Juarez and GreenLatinos California state program manager Pedro Hernández both denounced price hikes for noncitizens—a move that notably comes as the administration pursues Trump's promise of mass deportations.
"By imposing higher fees on people without state-issued ID," Hernández said, "the Trump administration is advancing a xenophobic policy that disproportionately harms vulnerable populations like international students, newly arrived immigrants, and families seeking asylum."
"This approach eviscerates the true meaning of public lands and sends a clear, exclusionary message that our most cherished national parks have become yet another pay-to-play system," he added. "People should be welcomed—not priced out from our public lands."
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