Paul Perry, warden at the Caroline Detention Facility, was one of the named defendants in the lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Virginia and partners.
The ACLU of Virginia entered into a class action settlement this week that will release multiple immigrants who have been kept in detention in Caroline County despite winning their immigration cases.
The lawsuit was filed last summer by ACLU and its partners, Amica Center for Immigrants’ Rights and the National Immigration Project, against Paul Perry, warden of Caroline Detention Facility—as well as against the warden of the Farmville Detention Center, the director of Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s Washington field office, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the Attorney General.
Six of the nine named plaintiffs—including the first named plaintiff, Roberto Rodriguez Guerra—had been detained at the Caroline facility, which is located near Bowling Green in the former Peumansend Creek Regional Jail.
The facility has a contract with ICE to house federal detainees who are undergoing the process of seeking asylum or being removed from the country.
The lawsuit alleged that ICE has been detaining immigrants who have won their cases and been granted asylum while the agency appeals the court’s decision.
Many of the named plaintiffs had been granted deferral of removal under the U.N. Convention Against Torture (CAT), which is granted when a person would likely face severe persecution or torture if deported to their country of origin.
“Since legal counsel in the case began tracking the release dates of detained non-citizens in Virginia, ICE has continued the detention of nearly every person – more than 50 in the last two years – even after they had been granted asylum, withholding of removal or protection under CAT,” the ACLU stated in a press release. “In 15 out of 20 cases, ICE continued their detention for at least three months after they had won their case.”
The settlement means that, unless it can show “exceptional circumstances warranting …continued detention,” ICE will now be required to release all immigrants in its custody in Virginia who have already won their cases.
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