ICE Can’t Shake Detained Migrants’ Virtual Court Access Suit

Federal immigration officials must still fight a lawsuit over poor access to remote court options in their Pennsylvania detention center, even though initial plaintiffs have been freed and seen their criminal cases dismissed.

US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania Judge Stephanie L. Haines on Tuesday mostly rejected the Department of Homeland Security’s urging to dismiss a potential class action brought by New Jersey migrants housed out-of-state. Though migrants who claimed a lack of remote tools for attending their criminal court appearances no longer have individual claims, they can still work to build a class case against the the federal government, the court ruled.

“The inability of detainees to attend their criminal proceedings deprives them of their constitutional right to a defense attorney, and their ability to be heard in court,” Haines said.

The ruling raises the stakes in litigation touching on hundreds of immigration case detainees at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, which is one of the nation’s largest migrant detention facilities. Federal officials are already appealing an order compelling the center to provide migrants facing criminal charges the same virtual appearance rights and technology access as other criminal defendants receive so they can appear in their New Jersey criminal matters.

Haines adopted a magistrate’s findings that the detainees “plausibly state a claim for denial of access to the courts” because of deprivations to rights under the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments that DHS policy doesn’t adequately address for detainees kept 300 miles from the courts where they must report for hearings.

The case, brought by civil rights group American Friends Service Committee, seeks to form a class action of hundreds of migrant detainees they claim have been denied access to Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WebEx, or telephones to attend remote hearings in their New Jersey matters. The group alleged that some migrants have even been issued bench warrants for their arrest in New Jersey for their non-appearance.

As the federal government pushes to fill detention centers and deport migrants, the detainee plaintiffs argue that they were denied technology that is made necessary by the distance from the facility in the central part of the state to courts in New Jersey. Police across the border can’t be expected to make an eight-hour round trip hundreds of times to bring detainees to their court appearances in the Garden State, they argue, while DHS says New Jersey has a duty to dispatch law enforcement to pick up and return the detainees.

The court found that the facility has 225 tablets, 220 telephones, and 30 virtual visitation booths. Still, the Department of Homeland Security argued that these detainees are demanding the facility expend limited resources, including access to the center’s four video conference rooms—technology the facility needs for the 1,200 detainees’ immigration proceedings.

Legal Services of New Jersey, Lowenstein Sandler, and Tiffany J. Lieu, a Harvard Law School instructor in its Crimmigration Clinic, represent the detainees.

The case is Doe v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., W.D. Pa., No. 3:24-cv-00259, 3/17/26.