Advocates for detainees jailed in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are asking for them to be released, fearing they will get the novel coronavirus while in detention.

In a petition recently filed against ICE in U.S. District Court in Detroit on behalf of three Iraqi nationals detained in jails in Michigan, Detroit attorney Shanta Driver said that the ICE detention centers in Calhoun and St. Clair counties "suffer from overcrowding and poor health conditions" that endanger her clients' lives. Driver said that one of the Iraqi detainees in Calhoun County's jail, Oliver Awshana, has exhibited some symptoms of the coronavirus.

"He's been sick for the whole last week," Driver said Wednesday. "I went to Calhoun, and he looked terrible. They're still holding him there."

Driver and other advocates, including leaders with the ACLU, have expressed concern about the spread of COVID-19 in immigrant detention facilities where they said it is difficult to practice social distancing and maintain hygiene. On Tuesday, ICE announced the first detainee to test positive for the novel coronavirus, a 31-year-old Mexican national in a New Jersey jail.

The ACLU this week filed a lawsuit on behalf of ICE detainees in Pennsylvania asking for their release due to coronavirus concerns. And in Michigan, the group No Detention Centers in Michigan, is calling for the release of ICE detainees.

The petition filed in Detroit alleges that "conditions at the Calhoun and St. Clair ICE Detention Facilities unnecessarily expose Petitioners to coronavirus."

But the sheriffs in Calhoun and St. Clair County dispute the characterization in the petition, saying their facilities are clean and that they are working to prevent any outbreak. ICE contracts with their jails to house immigrant detainees.

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"There is absolutely no overcrowding," St. Clair County Sheriff Tim Donnellon told the Free Press. "We passed ICE's standards. We're held to the highest standards. We have more than 100 open beds in our jail right now."

Donnellon said "it's absolutely not true" that their jail is unclean or overcrowded.

"It's extremely clean," he said.

Calhoun County Sheriff Matthew Saxton could not be reached Wednesday, but he spoke in a Facebook livestream on Friday about conditions in his jail, where some ICE detainees are held.

"We have policies and procedures to prohibit the spread of infectious diseases within our jail," Saxton said. "We have the ability to segregate folks if they need to be quarantined. The jail is not closed. We will accept new people that have committed crimes during this time. ... If you have a loved one in the jail facility, we're doing our best to make sure that any infectious disease is not spread or will come in our facility."

The other detainees mentioned in the petition filed are Ali Al-Sadoon, who's in St. Clair County's jail, and Wisam Hamana, who's in Calhoun County.

They were among hundreds of Iraqi nationals with criminal records who were detained by ICE starting in 2017 and were to be deported. Lawsuits filed on their behalf stopped some of their removals, including of the three in the new petition, but they remain in detention pending appeals by ICE.

Officials with the ICE Detroit office did not comment on the pending litigation, but said that ICE has taken steps to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

"ICE has temporarily suspended social visitation in all detention facilities," they said. "The health, welfare and safety of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees is one of the agency’s highest priorities. Since the onset of reports of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), ICE epidemiologists have been tracking the outbreak, regularly updating infection prevention and control protocols, and issuing guidance to ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC) staff for the screening and management of potential exposure among detainees."

A group that advocates for immigrants, No Detention Centers in Michigan, recently wrote an open letter calling upon Governor Gretchen Whitmer to release immigrant prisoners from North Lake Correctional Facility in Baldwin "and other immigrant-only federal prisons" to help protect against coronavirus. The group is also calling "for an immediate freeze on deportations and in-person immigration court proceedings, in the interest of protecting public safety."

Driver said she's hoping to add other ICE detainees to the petition, which has been assigned to Judge David Lawson, who asked ICE to respond to the complaint by Friday. Her legal complaint was filed on March 16.

Describing conditions in Calhoun, the petition reads: "Due to overcrowding it is impossible to maintain distance away from other people. There are 5 phones available, and everyone uses them all the time. There is only one sink for everyone to wash hands and clean whatever they need to clean."

Driver said that the three Iraqis she's representing do not pose threats to society. She said that getting them released "not just a question of their safety, it's a question of the safety of the hundreds of other detainees, guards, vendors, all those who work there" and face the threat of getting coronavirus.

Al-Sadoon, of Redford, and a father of six children, was arrested by ICE last year after he cut off his tether to try and escape being deported to Iraq. Awshana, of Muskegon, screamed on a flight last year as he was being deported to Iraq, causing the pilots to refuse to fly him to Turkey, Driver said.

Both previously had orders of removal, ICE has said.

The petition says that the three Iraqi detainees would face religious persecution if they were deported to Iraq.

Contact Niraj Warikoo:nwarikoo@freepress.com or 313-223-4792. Twitter @nwarikoo