SAN FRANCISCO, CA – The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced its decision to end detainee’s free access to phone calls, a policy previously established under the 2016 ACLU lawsuit “Lyon v. ICE.”
Advocates of detainees said protests at the Golden State Annex and Mesa Verde Immigration Center—in McFarland and Bakersfield, respectively—have intensified.
Just earlier this month, detainees at the Golden State Annex relaunched a work stoppage to protest “stolen wages, termination of the free phone calls, worsening living and working conditions, ongoing retaliation and prolonged detention at the facilities,” according to the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office (PDO).
“Detained people have the right to speak up, including through counsel,” said Victoria Petty, staff attorney, Immigration Justice at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF).
Petty added, “ICE locks people away in civil detention facilities, where people experience abuse and neglect. It obstructs people’s attempts to seek release from their unjustified civil detention… And now, ICE is cutting the free lines between detained people who seek help from pro bono attorneys to do something about their inhumane conditions.”
Prior to Aug. 1, immigrants held in U.S. detention facilities have benefited from free access to legal counsel, a provision established by the lawsuit “Lyon v. ICE,” for almost a decade.
Filed in 2016 by the ACLU on behalf of detainees, the lawsuit alleged ICE’s restrictive phone call policies infringed upon detainees’ constitutional right to an attorney, irrespective of their financial resources.
“Before our lawsuit secured free legal phone calls for immigrants in ICE detention facilities, it was practically impossible for people to consult with an attorney or gather evidence to support their cases, including asylum claims,” said Bree Bernwanger, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California.
Advocates claim ICE ultimately settled the case in 2016 and established a provision to allow pro bono attorneys to request a direct-dial pin, or “Lyon” pin, from ICE.
This policy was further supplemented during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with the 520 Free Minute Program, which provided detainees nationwide with 520 free, unmonitored minutes to call any line, the advocate source notes.
But all of this has changed this year.
“Now ICE is severing that lifeline, ending the Lyon calls. It also ended the 520 Free Minute Program in June,” says the SF Public Defender’s Office.
In place of both policies, ICE now allows free calls only to a select list of approved legal providers, according to the SF Defender’s Office, noting this excludes many essential pro bono services, including LCCRSF, which though aids detainees in challenging their detention and conditions, does not specifically provide specific “deportation-related legal advice” outlined by ICE.
Even for those who do qualify, according to the SF Public Defender’s Office, individuals are forced to “submit an application, face a months-long waiting period, and undergo a notice and comment process, before being added.”
“Our detained brothers and sisters are now forced to pay a predatory and high cost for phone calls,” said Jose Ruben Hernandez Gomez, who was previously detained at Mesa Verde and who launched a 21-day hunger strike in 2023 to protest conditions at the ICE facilities.
“If it wasn’t for these free legal calls when I was in detention, I know for a fact that I would not be here. Were it not for the ability to reach attorneys, I would not have been able to challenge deportation proceedings and would have been deported to a country where I would have faced great harm and even death,” Gomez also stated.
“ICE’s purposeful erosion of detained individuals’ fundamental and Constitutional rights is shameful,” said elected San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju, adding, “We will continue to challenge injustices like these and we remain inspired by the many individuals inside and outside detention who fight for immigrants’ human rights.”
