Federal, local defendants file motions to dismiss Clay County Jail lawsuit

Federal and local defendants in a case brought by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees at the Clay County Jail are asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the jail’s relationship with federal immigration authorities.

Late last month, federal defendants filed a motion to dismiss a suit alleging ICE should’ve ceased providing funding to the Clay County Jail last year due to failing inspections, and because local officials allegedly used federal funds for purposes not permitted by applicable law.

Since 2013, Clay County has maintained a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service to hold ICE detainees. The Department of Homeland Security pays the county $55 per ICE detainee per day, on top of transportation costs for gas and guards.

The federal defendants, represented by the U.S. Department of Justice, largely pointed to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) in their 23-page memorandum supporting the motion to dismiss.

“Plaintiffs cannot state (Administrative Procedure Act) claims where, as here, they are premised on broad programmatic allegations and day-to-day agency operations,” the memorandum states. “Nor may Plaintiffs seek judicial relief to challenge an agency’s exercise of enforcement discretion. And in any event, it is no more than speculative that the relief Plaintiffs can properly seek would redress the harms they have alleged.”

The motion notes that just one of the original plaintiffs was being held at the jail as of July 22, the day the motion was filed, with the other three had been transferred or removed from the country.

The suit in question alleges Clay County officials have used ICE as a “cash cow” by unlawfully diverting funds required to care for ICE detainees to unrelated county expenses. Additionally, the plaintiffs allege the standards at the Brazil jail are failing, and that in 2021, ICE colluded with county officials to make sure a second failing grade for the facility didn’t happen to keep their agreement intact.

Clay County Jail is currently the only facility in the state housing ICE detainees, and on average it holds 50 and 60 ICE detainees per day, with the average stay lasting around 21 days.

Filed in April, the lawsuit came on the heels of the Clay County commissioners approving a jail expansion project estimated to cost $20 to $25 million. The new jail will almost double the size of the facility and bump the bed number to around 441.

Federal defendants, in their supporting memorandum, wrote that the plaintiffs bear the burden of establishing the three elements that constitute the “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing.”

“Plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden at least as to the third element of the standing inquiry: redressability,” the defendants wrote. “That prong of standing doctrine requires a plaintiff to show that it is ‘likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision’ from the court.

“… Here, Plaintiffs allege various injuries rooted in conditions at the Clay County Jail,” they continue. “Thus, in order to show redressability, Plaintiffs must show that it is likely that the relief they seek in this litigation would remedy those allegedly unlawful conditions or cause their release or transfer from those conditions. Plaintiffs fail to do so.

“… Plaintiffs ask the Court for injunctive relief it is powerless to enter and declaratory relief that would be ineffectual in redressing the injury they allege. Plaintiffs thus fail to meet their burden to show standing and the Court lacks jurisdiction accordingly.”

Additionally, the federal defendants argue the plaintiffs do not challenge a final agency action under Rule 12(b)(6). Also, they claim the plaintiffs’ arguments fail for another reason: they challenge matters committed to agency discretion by law, which are precluded from APA review under section 701(a)(2).

A week before the federal motion to dismiss, the Clay County defendants also filed a motion to dismiss.

Clay County, in its own 25-page memorandum of support, argues the complaint should be dismissed for two reasons.

“First, the Detainees have named Clay County itself as defendant. The other 19 Clay County boards, elected officials, employees, and even a building are duplicative and should be dismissed,” the county defendants wrote, citing Ball v. City of Muncie, 28 F. Supp. 3d 797, 802 (S.D. Ind. 2014). “Moreover, the vast majority of the Clay County Defendants are not parties to the Agreement, and there is no basis for them to be defendants for this claim.

“Second, federal law governs this dispute. Under federal law, Detainees lack standing to sue under the Agreement, though the same is true under Indiana law as well,” they continue. “Other federal courts have reached the same conclusion under the same form contract. Detainees’ claims fail as a matter of law.

“Where conditions warrant it, jail detainees can directly challenge the conditions of their confinement through a Constitutional challenge or they could file a grievance within the jail system itself. Detainees have chosen not to follow either of these paths for whatever reason. But this choice does not entitle them to piggy-back claims on a contract to which they are neither a party nor a third-party beneficiary.”

Attorneys from Bose McKinney & Evans are representing the Clay County defendants, according to court records.

Plaintiffs requested class action certification, but in a joint motion on scheduling, the defendants requested that class certification be held in abeyance due to “scheduling issues.”

The case in the Indiana Southern District Court is Cardenas, et al. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), et al., 1:22-cv-00801.