Lyon v. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement

308 F.R.D. 203, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97694, 2015 WL 4538047
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedJuly 27, 2015
DocketNo. C-13-5878 EMC
StatusPublished
Cited by51 cases

This text of 308 F.R.D. 203 (Lyon v. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lyon v. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, 308 F.R.D. 203, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97694, 2015 WL 4538047 (N.D. Cal. 2015).

Opinion

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION TO MODIFY CLASS CERTIFICATION, SUPPLEMENT COMPLAINT, AND MODIFY THE CASE MANAGEMENT SCHEDULING ORDER

EDWARD M. CHEN, United States District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs in this putative class action are Audley Barrington Lyon, Jr.; José Elizandro Astorga-Cervantes; and other similarly situated immigration detainees (hereafter “Plaintiffs”). They filed this class action against the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), and certain employees of both agencies on the grounds that their constitutional and statutory rights are being violated while they are held in government custody awaiting deportation proceedings. Specifically, Plaintiffs challenge practices that they claim restrict their ability to make telephone calls necessary to prepare for their removal proceedings in the San Francisco Immigration Court. Initially, Plaintiffs were held at three county detention facilities located throughout Northern California while awaiting the resolution of their removal proceedings: Richmond, Yuba, and Elk Grove (collectively, the “County Facilities”). In April 2014, the Court certified a class in this litigation consisting of all detainees held at the three County Facilities. Lyon v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 300 F.R.D. 628, 643 (N.D.Cal.2014). The Court determined that despite variations among the practices of the three facilities, Plaintiffs alleged a system-wide denial of telephone access and sought to impose a constitutional standard that is equally applicable to all facilities. Id. at 642-43.

In March 2015, ICE opened a new detention facility in Bakersfield and began housing certain aliens and class members there. Plaintiffs allege that the telephone policies and practices at the Bakersfield facility do not allow detainees adequate access to resources necessary to prepare for their removal proceedings. Currently pending before the Court is Plaintiffs’ motion to: (1) modify the Court’s Class Certification Order to include detainees housed at the newly opened Bakersfield facility as class members; (2) file a supplemental complaint that would add allegations regarding the Bakersfield facility and add a new representative plaintiff; and (3) extend all deadlines in the Case Management Scheduling Order (“Scheduling Order”) by seventy five days or longer to allow for necessary discovery regarding the Bakersfield facility.

Having considered the parties’ briefs and accompanying submissions, for the reasons stated on the record and as set forth herein, the Court hereby GRANTS Plaintiffs’ motion to modify the Class Certification Order and to file a supplemental complaint. The Court will also extend the deadlines in its Scheduling Order to allow for additional discovery.

II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit on December 19, 2013, challenging the adequacy of telephone access for aliens detained in the three County Facilities. Docket No. 86 (Motion) at 2. In their complaint, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants have engaged in a common course of conduct restricting detainees’ telephone access in violation of their rights under the United States Constitution and the Immigration and Nationality Act. Docket No. 1 (Complaint) ¶ 4. More specifically, Plaintiffs allege that telephone access in the County Facilities is prohibitively expensive and inconsistently available, and that this impedes their ability to communicate with counsel or independently gather evidence for their removal proceedings. Id. ¶ 38. Under ICE’s National Detention Standards, detention facilities must provide a “platform” that permits detainees to make free calls and leave voicemail messages for nonprofit legal services providers and certain government entities. Id. ¶ 41. However, because the majority of immigration attorneys and other local and state government offices are not within the free call platform, Plaintiffs allege that these standards are largely ineffectual, and therefore their legal claims focus on detain[208]*208ees’ ability to make calls outside of this platform. Id.

Plaintiffs argue that phone calls outside of the free call platform at the County Facilities are not sufficiently private, affordable, or available to detainees. Complaint ¶¶ 42-49. For example, Plaintiffs argue that intrastate calls from the Richmond facility cost $3.00 to connect and $0.25 per minute. Id. ¶ 46. Calls from certain facilities are automatically disconnected after fifteen minutes, and detainees must pay a new connection fee to continue the conversation. Docket No. 14-8 (Vincent Deel.) ¶ 6; Docket No.14-6 (Lee Deck) ¶ 6. Furthermore, detainees are only permitted to use the phones during certain specified “free time” hours, which are typically held outside the normal business hours of most private attorneys or government agencies. Docket No. 14-5 (Hernandez-Trujillo Deck) ¶ 9. Moreover, detainees claim they may only complete calls if a live person answers the phone, meaning they are unable to leave voicemail messages or navigate “voi-cemail trees” that are common to many offices. Hernandez-Trujillo Deck ¶¶ 16-17. According to Defendants, this restriction prevents detainees from contacting individuals who do not want to speak with them or with whom they are not permitted to speak. Docket No. 90-1 Ex. 2 (Bonnar Deck) ¶ 10. Detainees also cannot receive incoming calls or voicemail messages. Vincent Deck ¶ 3; Lee Deck ¶ 7. Finally, detainees claim they are afforded little privacy for privileged attorney calls, as most of the phones available are located in the housing units of the County Facilities. Docket No. 86-1 (Neria-Garcia Deck) ¶¶ 18-19.

On April 16, 2014, the Court certified a class of “all current and future immigration detainees who are or will be held by ICE in Contra Costa, Sacramento, and Yuba Counties.” Lyon, 300 F.R.D. at 643. Plaintiffs’ overarching claim that detainees lacked adequate phone access to effectively pursue vindication of their legal rights satisfied the requirements of Rule 23(a), and the “singular nature of the injunctions sought” was appropriate for certification under Rule 23(b)(2). Id. at 642-43. Although precise practices may vary among the facilities, the Court held that this “does not negate the application of a constitutional floor equally applicable to all facilities.” Id. at 642. After the Court certified the class, two of the named plaintiffs, Edgar Cornelio and Lourdes Hernandez-Trujillo, voluntarily dismissed their claims because they were unable to continue serving as class representatives. Docket No. 84 (Voluntary Dismissal of Lourdes Hernandez-Trujillo); Docket No. 71 (Voluntary Dismissal of Edgar Cornelio). One of these plaintiffs, Lourdes Hernandez-Trujillo, was the only named plaintiff asserting claims related to the Yuba facility. Complaint ¶¶ 11-14. Hence, there is currently no representative plaintiff with claims related to the Yuba facility, and Plaintiffs seek to add a new class representative who alleges claims against both the Bakersfield and Yuba facilities. Motion at 13; see also Neria-Garcia Deck ¶¶ 14-28.

Plaintiffs acknowledge that Defendants have implemented several changes to their phone access policies at the County Facilities in response to this litigation. For example, at the Yuba and Elk Grove facilities, detainees’ telephone calls now disconnect after twenty minutes, instead of fifteen. Docket No. 86-3 Ex. A (Proposed First Supplemental Complaint) ¶48.

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308 F.R.D. 203, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97694, 2015 WL 4538047, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lyon-v-us-immigration-customs-enforcement-cand-2015.