A federal judge in Baltimore has dismissed Maryland’s lawsuit seeking records on conditions in the immigration holding rooms at the George H. Fallon Federal Building, in a ruling made public on Friday. The judge found that the state’s subpoena, a legal order to hand over records, relied on a state law that does not apply to the federal government.
Judge Julie R. Rubin of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ruled that the state had no legal right to sue U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and the Department of Homeland Security because its subpoena was invalid from the start. She wrote that the court could not enforce it.
She did not rule on whether conditions in the holding rooms are lawful.
The subpoena, issued by the office of Attorney General Anthony Brown, cited a state law which authorizes investigations of civil rights violations. The law applies to any “person.” Maryland defines that word to include individuals and companies but not the federal government, Rubin wrote.
She also left open whether the law could be used to investigate a private contractor working for the federal government.
Whether state law applies to federal agencies is likely to come up more often as ICE moves to own more of the places where it holds people. ICE’s draft contract terms for new detention centers say state and local laws would not apply to them. On an earnings call this year, George Zoley, chief executive of the private prison company GEO Group, was asked why ICE would want to own facilities rather than contract for them. He said federal ownership brings protection from what he called “unwarranted litigation” and is the logical response to states considering more oversight.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has bought 11 warehouses for a combined $1.04 billion to turn into detention centers. It has also bought five detention centers from private prison companies, four from CoreCivic and one from GEO Group. The companies have said they will keep running the sites. A separate ICE plan calls for contractors to run new detention centers near Denver, Miami, Seattle, and State College, Pa.
Another Maryland law lets the attorney general challenge federal actions that threaten residents, including on immigration. The state cited that law in a cover letter but not in the subpoena itself. The judge said only the law named in the subpoena counted.
Brown’s office delivered the subpoena to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security on Jan. 30, asking for nine kinds of records from the previous year. The requests included detainee complaints, medical records, reports on the use of force, contracts for services, and detention logs.
The Fallon building has five holding rooms with a combined capacity of 56 people. They are meant for stays of up to about 12 hours and are not set up for medical care, hygiene, or sleeping. A video showing conditions inside led Brown’s office to open an investigation early this year.
The state alleged overcrowding, long detentions, too little food and water, unsanitary conditions, and denial of access to lawyers. Its lawsuit cited a former worker at ICE’s Baltimore office who told WUSA9 in February that blankets were soiled and that women were denied menstrual products.
ICE denied the subpoena on Feb. 25. The agency said the requests were too broad, too burdensome, and duplicated records it had already turned over in a separate lawsuit by detainees over the same rooms. The state replied that a court order in that case limits its access to those records. In March, the agency asked for another month to respond.
The state sued on March 10, arguing that the refusal was unlawful and arbitrary and that the agency had taken too long to respond.
In later court filings, the state said it was also investigating a private contractor it linked to conditions in the rooms. Rubin rejected that argument because the state’s lawsuit named only ICE and the Department of Homeland Security as targets of the investigation. She wrote that a party cannot add new claims in a later filing.
Rubin also oversees a separate lawsuit by people held in the same rooms. Earlier this year, she issued a temporary court order in their favor.
The judge dismissed the case without prejudice, which means the state can file it again. As of publication, the state had not filed an appeal.