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Supreme Court says detainee records subject to FOIA

Court Gavel - Judge's Gavel - Courtroom by weiss_paarz_photos is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Michigan Supreme Court has ruled a county jail must divulge records related to a detention on behalf of the federal immigration agency.

The decision was unanimous. The court said records related to Calhoun County’s three-day detention of Jilmar Ramos-Gomez are not exempt from Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act. The sheriff’s office tried to shield the records because Ramos-Gomez was held on behalf of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Miriam Aukerman is with the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit in 2019.

“Things that happen behind bars, if we can’t find out about them, that’s a really dangerous place to be.”

The ACLU is also trying to get records related to the jailhouse death last year of another ICE detainee.

Rick Pluta is Senior Capitol Correspondent for the Michigan Public Radio Network.