A researcher battling the federal government to obtain records of undocumented immigrant minors jailed in Cowlitz County has asked that the case be returned to the county court where the dispute started.
University of Washington professor Angelina Godoy wants the jail files of immigrant minors held in Cowlitz County for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over a 3.5 year period. Godoy maintains that the government, by blocking access to the records, is effectively operating an undemocratic “black site” by holding the juveniles without explaining their charges or causes for detention. She requested the records in 2018 for research purposes.
The Cowlitz County Youth Services Center, where those minors were held, is one of three facilities where ICE is approved to house unaccompanied minors for more than 72 hours at a time.
A visiting Clark judge was set to rule in Cowlitz Superior Court on whether the records could be released on Jan. 15.
But on Dec. 30, the U.S. government moved the case to U.S. District Court in Seattle. A week later, federal lawyers asked the federal judge to block the records from release.
UW argues that ICE doesn’t have legal grounds to move the case, because it joined the case as a plaintiff, not as a defendant. The University filed its own motion in January asking the U.S. District Court to send the case back to Cowlitz County.
It was not clear whether UW and the county believe they have a better chance at winning in a local court.
Under a nearly 20-year-old contract with Cowlitz County, ICE detains some juveniles at the Cowlitz County Youth Services Center. The minors are in ICE’s legal custody, and it’s not the county’s decision on when they are released.
Those detainees, ICE says, include “List 1” juveniles, or those with criminal or violent backgrounds, ongoing criminal proceedings, and histories of disruptive behavior. But Godoy wants to know exactly what landed those juveniles on List 1 and in the Youth Services Center in the first place.
According to an affidavit written by an ICE officer who reviewed the roughly 600-page file of records, the documents contain “personally identifiable information (of minors and third parties), medical information, detainers, and law enforcement sensitive information.”
Godoy says her group specifically asked for the files to be stripped of personally-identifying information.
