Congress members press feds to free non-violent offenders
BY MARK HALLUM
Elected offi cials said Sunday that they
are telling federal agencies to cut the
“business as usual” attitude toward
incarceration and release non-violent offenders
and elderly convicts who pose no
risk to the public to protect their health
from the spread of coronavirus.
Congress Members Nydia Velázquez,
Jerrold Nadler and Hakeem Jeffries held
a virtual rally from the Metropolitan Detention
Center (MDC) in Brooklyn that
asked for the U.S. Attorneys Offi ces and
the courts to identify individuals eligible
for release under these demands.
David Patton from the Federal Defenders
of New York told reporters on Sunday
that roughly a third of the detainees in the
MDC are vulnerable to COVID-19 and
could die if exposed.
“Yesterday, the fi rst inmate in the country
in the Bureau of Prisons system tested
positive right here at the MDC for coronavirus,”
Patton said. “These are places that
particularly susceptible to contagion; they
are not sanitary, social distancing is not a
possibility, they’re overcrowded and this is
a real disaster waiting to happen.”
Nadler said it was “incumbent” on the
PHOTO BY MARK HALLUM An NYC Department of Corrections officers strolls
a corridor in the Queens House of Detention
Release ICE Detainees in Public Health’s Interest, Activists Say
BY DONNA ACETO &
PAUL SCHINDLER
A group organized last summer by
Jewish activists opposed to the
federal Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) detention of more than
50,000 undocumented immigrants is now
calling for the emergency release of those
detainees because of the risk they face from
COVID-19 while in confi nement.
Never Again Action is pressing governors
across the nation to use their executive
power to order the release of immigrant
detainees within their states in the interest
of the immigrants’ safety and the broader
public health.
On the evening of March 20, Never
Again Action members gathered outside
the Thurgood Marshall Federal Courthouse
located close to the ICE fi eld offi ce in Lower
Manhattan’s Foley Square. Noting that
there are 10 detention centers in the New
York metropolitan area, the demonstrators
demanded that Governor Andrew Cuomo
move to release those held in facilities
within New York State.
Explicitly linking the confi nement of
federal government to protect the lives of
incarcerated folks and that pre-trial individuals
are no exception.
“They’ve got to stop doing business as
usual and only bringing cases when they
are absolutely necessary for public safety,”
Patton continued. “The second request is
Never Again Action’s projection in Foley Square on March 20.
undocumented immigrants to the rounding
up of European Jews during the Holocaust,
the group argues, “Anne Frank didn’t die in
a gas chamber. Anne Frank died because
she caught an infectious disease in a concentration
camp. We have seen this before.
that they work with us to get people out of
these facilities.”
Velázquez issued a letter the Federal
Bureau of Prisons to ask what the agency
is doing to limit the threat to prisoners in
facilities under their purview as well as
staff while highlighting that some of those
PHOTO BY DONNA ACETO.
We won’t let it happen again. Never again
is now.”
The activists projected an image of Anne
Frank onto the courthouse façade that
explained that the famous Dutch Jewish
teenage diarist died of typhus in a cramped,
effected may not even be guilty of a crime.
“Let’s keep in mind that of MDC, Brooklyn,
and MCC in Manhattan, the majority of
those detained are awaiting trial and have
not – have not – been convicted,” Velázquez
said. “I also believe that the U.S. Attorney’s
offi ce should exercise maximum restraint in
terms of bringing addition individuals into
the court and jail system.”
Also pointed out by Velázquez was
the fact that both the private and public
sectors have taken measures and changed
their operations to suit the current situation
and the incarceration system should be no
different.
The call goes along with the Legal Aid
Society’s lawsuit in state Supreme Court
to release 116 individuals in pretrial
detention or being held on a parole violation
at local jails who are at high risk to
COVID-19.
Corey Stoughton, Attorney-in-Charge
of the Special Litigation Unit with the
Criminal Defense Practice at The Legal
Aid Society, made similar appeal to the
humanist side of government that sending
someone to a jail facility like those on
Rikers Island, run by the city of New York
at this time could be a “death sentence”
without even a guilty verdict.
inhuman camp.
“Refusing to free refugees during a pandemic
is the height of reckless cruelty,” said
protestor Brad Cohn. “I hope Governor
Cuomo has either the compassion — or,
lacking that, the instinct for self-preservation
— to protect all of us by liberating the
most vulnerable among us.”
A written release from Never Again Action
noted that there have been confi rmed
COVID-19 cases among staff at the privately
operated ICE facility in Elizabeth, New
Jersey, and that detainees held in Aurora,
Colorado, may also have been exposed to
infection.
In three detention facilities in New Jersey,
immigrants being held are on a hunger
strike, and the group last week also did an
action at the Essex County Correctional
Facility. It is calling for Governor Phil
Murphy, like Cuomo, to release detainees
held within his state.
Spokespeople for Cuomo and Murphy
did not immediately respond to a request
for comment on whether each governor
believed he had the authority to order
the release of federal detainees, and if so
whether he intended to do so.
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6 March 26, 2020 Schneps Media