Mar 10
2025
Lawsuit: ICE violating First Amendment in Batavia
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The ICE detention facility in Batavia.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stationed at the Batavia detention center are routinely opening, reading and keeping copies of legal mail sent to detainees in violation of the First Amendment, a lawsuit filed Monday alleges.
Attorneys with three civil rights groups, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, argue they can’t properly represent their detained clients if their correspondence isn’t confidential.
The lawsuit alleges that in November, ICE expanded a previous mail inspection policy to include all legal documents that enter the facility. Whether documents arrive by mail or are carried in by an attorney, an ICE official handles, inspects and copies all of the paperwork, giving one copy to the detainee and keeping another copy.
“In over a dozen instances observed by [a] detained client, ICE officers have read an individual’s legal mail while copying the mail,” the lawsuit claims.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomIn practice, the policy has made detainees afraid to communicate with their lawyers, said Amy Belfer, an attorney with the NYCLU.
“The chilling effect is really dangerous in terms of people self-censoring and not feeling able to work with their lawyers to develop their cases,” she said.
That’s a problem, she said, because many of the people detained in Batavia are seeking asylum. Those cases often rely on a person convincing a hearing officer that they’re fleeing persecution in their home country — something that requires sharing personal details with an attorney.
But someone might not be comfortable sharing that same information with ICE guards or fellow detainees.
Belfer gave an example: Say a person faced persecution in their home country for being gay or transgender. Those details would be important to their asylum case, but not details that the person would want guards or their fellow detainees to know.
“People are going to feel really nervous about putting anything down on paper,” Belfer said.
The lawsuit alleges that clients of the three legal organizations have already requested that their attorneys limit what they share with their clients in writing.
“The Organizations and their clients do not trust that the confidentiality of their written communications is secure under Defendants’ new legal mail policy,” the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit alleges the practice also violates ICE’s own internal standards and the federal Administrative Procedures Act. Filed in the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, the suit asks a judge to halt the policy. It names the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and the officials in charge of the Batavia facility as defendants.
Belfer said that if ICE was worried about contraband entering the facility via legal mail, there are other ways to scan and screen packages and envelopes of material without an officer reading what’s inside.
“The facility has ways to verify what is and isn’t legal mail and they haven’t taken those steps as an interim measure to this extreme policy,” she said.
Officers reading and copying legal documents is just the latest abuse of detainee rights alleged at the Batavia facility. Previous lawsuits have alleged many detainees are kept locked in a cell for up to 18 hours per day unless they agree to work a menial job for $1 per day.
And Investigative Post has previously reported on patterns of physical abuse by guards and the widespread use of solitary confinement at the facility.
ICE spokesperson Marie Ferguson declined to comment saying the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated.
