The article documents widespread problems that prevent people held by ICE from confidentially contacting lawyers, framed through the case of Fernando Gomez Ruiz, who alleges denial of insulin and restricted legal calls at California City Detention Facility. Class-action lawsuits and oversight reports from 2006 to 2022 describe monitored calls, copied privileged mail, unreliable detainee locator systems, and one-hour caps on virtual legal visits. Advocates warn these structural failures increase the risk of deportation and can coerce detainees into voluntary departure without meaningful counsel.
Denied Privilege: Lawsuits Allege ICE Detainees Routinely Barred From Private Lawyer Access
In early October, 61-year-old Fernando Gomez Ruiz was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while eating at a food truck in Los Angeles. After 22 years in the city, he was transferred to the California City Detention Facility, where he says guards denied him insulin. His blood sugar spiked and an ulcer formed on his foot; he now treats the wound with dirty, bloody gauze. Because the facility restricts and delays legal calls, Gomez Ruiz says he has been unable to fully explain his medical needs to his attorney.
What Detainees and Lawyers Say
Attorney-client privilege is one of the oldest protections in American law. “It is a sacrosanct privilege,” said Eunice Cho, senior attorney at the ACLU National Prison Project. For people in government custody, private and confidential conversations with counsel are often a detainee’s only connection to the outside world.
ICE contends that its detention standards protect attorney-client communications by providing private meeting rooms, unmonitored legal calls, and secure legal mail. But recent litigation and reporting suggest a starkly different reality: class-action lawsuits from California to New York and Florida allege monitored legal calls, copied privileged mail, and routine denial or delay of attorney access.
How The System Fails Confidential Communication
According to complaints and interviews with lawyers, the breakdown begins at intake. ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System is often delayed or incomplete, leaving attorneys—and family members—unable to find clients for days. When contact is possible, calls frequently face long waits; virtual meetings are often capped at one hour, and tablets intended for confidential legal use are in some facilities monitored or recorded. In-person meetings that are supposed to be private sometimes occur through glass or in crowded rooms with guards nearby, making meaningful confidentiality impossible.
“You’re kind of crouched down and yelling to make sure that each other hears… It doesn’t sound to me like it’s a confidential kind of conversation,” said Marisol Dominguez-Ruiz, one of Gomez Ruiz’s ACLU attorneys, describing a visit at California City.
Legal Stakes And Structural Problems
Immigrants in ICE custody are civil detainees and therefore do not have a Sixth Amendment right to appointed counsel. Still, courts have recognized that the right to access an attorney is critical. A 2019 federal ruling emphasized that the government cannot unlawfully impede detainees’ access to counsel and that such restrictions may implicate First Amendment rights.
Research shows the consequences are severe: a study by the American Immigration Council found that people without attorneys are about twice as likely to be deported. Advocates argue that civil-detention processes and the limits on timely judicial review allow structural problems to persist. Unlike in criminal cases—where interference with counsel can be addressed immediately in federal court—immigration claims often cannot be reviewed until after a removal order is issued and a petition for review is filed.
Historical Context and Scale
This is not new. A 2006 Department of Homeland Security report documented detainees forced to make attorney calls in nonprivate settings and facilities that delayed or denied attorney calls for weeks. A 2012 American Immigration Council report and the ACLU’s 2022 "No Fighting Chance" study found similar, recurring violations: the ACLU identified at least 58 out of 199 ICE facilities that blocked attorney calls, failed to provide private meeting space, or caused delays that harmed legal representation.
Advocates also link these failures to enforcement priorities that increased removals and placed pressure on detention systems. Critics say the result is a system that effectively strips away the practical protections of attorney-client privilege and uses those gaps to encourage voluntary departures or self-deportation.
Allegations of Coercion
At some facilities, advocates say officers have encouraged detainees to sign ICE Form I-210, a voluntary departure order, sometimes completing forms without counsel present. “People are signing these life-altering documents without the benefit of talking to counsel,” Cho said.
What Advocates Are Calling For
Litigants and rights groups are seeking court orders and policy changes to guarantee private attorney calls, secure legal mail, unrestricted access to counsel, and a reliable detainee locator system. They argue that ensuring confidential communications is essential not only to fair hearings but to basic health and safety for people in custody.
Bottom line: Multiple lawsuits, decades of oversight reports, and courtroom testimony paint a picture of systemic barriers to confidential attorney access in ICE detention. For detainees like Fernando Gomez Ruiz, those barriers can mean the difference between effective legal representation and life-altering consequences.
