Doe v. Mayorkas is a lawsuit about conditions in Tucson Sector Border Patrol stations. On January 11, 2016, the court in this lawsuit (“the Court”) certified as class of people defined as: all individuals who are now or in future will be detained within a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) facility within the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector. After a trial, on February 27, 2020, the Court found in favor of the class. On April 17, 2020, the Court issued an order called a “permanent injunction” in which it requires Tucson Sector Border Patrol to take certain actions with regard to the conditions in which it confines class members. Recently, the attorneys for the U.S. government and the attorneys representing the Plaintiffs entered into an agreement to settle attorney fees, expenses and taxable costs. The Court preliminarily approved the agreement. The notice to class members is available in English and Spanish.
Background
In June 2015, the ACLU of Arizona filed a lawsuit challenging the inhumane and unconstitutional conditions in detention facilities used by the U.S. Border Patrol in the Tucson Sector. The lawsuit comes after several months of investigation and fact-finding including interviews with 75 men and women who described appalling conditions including being detained in freezing, overcrowded, and filthy cells for extended periods of time, no access to beds, soap, showers, adequate meals and water, medical care, and lawyers in violation of constitutional standards and Border Patrol’s own policies. The case was filed in federal district court in Tucson. Co-counsel in the case includes the National Immigration Law Center, the American Immigration Council, the ACLU of Arizona, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, and Morrison & Foerster LLP.
On January 11, 2016, the federal court granted plaintiffs’ motion allowing the case to continue as a class action and ruled against the government’s motion to dismiss the case, deciding that plaintiffs’ constitutional claims on behalf of migrants detained in the Tucson Sector could move forward.
