Zepeda Rivas v. Jennings, 465 F.Supp.3d 1028

Background:

Class action filed by ICE detainees at Mesa Verde Detention Center and Yuba County Jail alleging overcrowding made social distancing impossible and thus detention conditions violated due process during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Court provisionally certified the class and entered a TRO requiring ICE to provide detainee information and establishing a bail/release process with factors for temporary release (danger to community, flight risk, health risk, likelihood of habeas success).
Since the TRO, conditions at both facilities improved (reduced population, staggered meals, bunk spacing, masks), but improvements largely resulted from litigation pressure rather than ICE initiative.
ICE made a materially inaccurate sworn statement about quarantining transfers from COVID-19–infected facilities; the statement was later recanted as “inadvertently inaccurate.”
The Court granted a preliminary injunction ordering ICE to maintain the current COVID-19–safety status quo, continue information-sharing and discovery, and continue individualized consideration of temporary releases; broader plaintiff demands for detailed distancing metrics and admissions/transfers bans were rejected as overbroad for now.

Issues:

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether interim relief (preliminary injunction) is warranted	Conditions are unconstitutionally unsafe; injunction needed to lock in safety improvements	No outbreak yet; TRO compliance shows relief unnecessary	Injunction granted to maintain current status quo and information flows to prevent likely harm
Court authority to order temporary release of detainees	Court may order temporary release under habeas and equitable powers to remedy unconstitutional conditions	Ninth Circuit precedent bars district courts from ordering release in immigration contexts	Court rejects a categorical bar; affirms authority to grant individualized temporary release where detainee is not dangerous or a flight risk
Scope of injunctive relief (detailed social-distancing rules; admissions/transfers ban)	Court should require strict distancing (e.g., 10 ft sleeping, 6 ft otherwise), written plans, and halt new admissions/transfers until compliance	Such orders unduly intrude on ICE's discretion and operational judgments	Court declines sweeping prescriptive mandates as overly intrusive; limits relief to maintaining current practices and will consider more only after further factfinding
ICE screening, accuracy of declarations, and need for further factfinding	ICE fails to quarantine/transparently screen new arrivals; misstatements raise risk and warrant further relief/hearing	ICE asserts screening/quarantine practices (but retracted earlier representation) and points to recent improvements	Court criticized ICE’s misstatement, ordered parties to meet-and-confer about screening, preserved option for evidentiary hearing, and required continued reporting/discovery

Key Cases Cited

Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council, 555 U.S. 7 (2008) (standard for preliminary injunction)
Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25 (1993) (conditions-of-confinement due-process analysis)
Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979) (constitutional standard acknowledging inherent risks of confinement)
Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307 (1982) (right to safe conditions in confinement)
DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Servs., 489 U.S. 189 (1989) (limitations on state’s duty outside custodial relationship)
Demore v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510 (2003) (government interest in detaining certain immigration detainees)
Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001) (limits on detention in immigration context)
Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475 (1973) (habeas corpus and proper procedural vehicle for relief)
Nettles v. Grounds, 830 F.3d 922 (9th Cir. 2016) (relationship between habeas and §1983 claims)
Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center, Inc., 575 U.S. 320 (2015) (scope of equitable relief against unlawful executive action)
Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. 493 (2011) (equitable remedies and provisional relief in prison conditions cases)
Gordon v. County of Orange, 888 F.3d 1118 (9th Cir. 2018) (standards for conditions-of-confinement claims)
Mapp v. Reno, 241 F.3d 221 (2d Cir. 2001) (inherent power to release habeas petitioners on bail)
Land v. Deeds, 878 F.2d 318 (9th Cir. 1989) (district court bail authority)