Appeals Court Shreds Order Releasing Prisoners Due to Pandemic

A district court’s decision releasing 22 immigration detainees, after they claimed health-care concerns over Covid-19 in their facilities, was fraught with procedural and substantive due process errors and must be vacated, the Third Circuit said Tuesday.

This case was filed immediately after the district court ruled for different detainees in the same Pennsylvania facilities, who had also sought release based on pandemic concerns.

Citing its holding in the previous case, the lower court issued a temporary restraining order requiring the detainees’ release without allowing the government to respond.

But then lower court paused the order for three days, gave the ...