Judge rejects request from ACLU on Moshannon Valley detainees ruling

Group wanted Haines to reconsider decision on immigrants at Mo Valley

U.S. District Judge Stephanie L. Haines this week rejected a request by the American Civil Liberties Union to reconsider a decision she made in May denying class certification to inmates in the Moshannon Valley Processing Center who have been, or will be, designated for deportation under the Alien Enemies Act.

President Donald Trump, in a Proclamation issued in mid-March, designated Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization from Venezuela, and vowed to deport members of the group from the United States under a rarely used 1798 law, the Alien Enemies Act.

The Proclamation has been enforced by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.

The arrests of alleged TdA members has impacted migrant detention centers throughout the nation, including at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County, and raised complex legal issues concerning the scope of due process procedures available to those being taken into custody.

Haines, presiding in the district court in Johns­town, was among the first judges in the nation to be confronted with the legal complexities stemming from the Proclamation.

A 30-year-old immigrant from Venezuela, referred to by his initials A.S.R., came across the southern border in 2021 and was recently detained in Moshannon Valley as a suspected TdA member.

He denied he was a TdA member and while in Moshannon Valley, which is operated by the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he sought legal help.

In a May hearing, A.S.R., represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, contested his detention, but on the morning of the hearing he was removed from Moshannon Valley and sent to a detention center in Texas.

Haines, however, determined she had jurisdiction over the case and established procedures mandating that an immigrant be granted 21 days to obtain a lawyer and file a legal challenge to his detention.

She had also initially certified his lawsuit as a class action representing all those at Moshannon Valley facing deportation under the Alien Enemies Act, a designation that would enable defendants to more easily file challenges to their detention.

But, after the A.S.R. hearing, she determined that the number of those at Moshannon Valley facing deportation was not enough to warrant a "class" designation, and she decertified the class.

ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt of New York then filed a petition asking Haines to reconsider her decision.

He argued, "Multiple courts across the country addressing challenges to removal under the Alien Enemies Act have certified district-wide habeas classes similar to the one A.S.R. sought."

But, according to Haines, the numbers don't warrant a class action designation for Moshannon Valley.

She recently issued a temporary restraining order in a similar case involving another suspected TdA member with the pseudonym of W.J.C.C.

He filed his petition through his own lawyer and Haines issued a temporary restraining order, barring his deportation without due process.

The ACLU was able to identify six other individuals who were previously detained at Moshannon Valley and who would have been subject to the Trump Proclamation.

A class of eight (the six plus A.S.R. and W.J.C.C) is too small a number to constitute a "class" for legal purposes, Haines ruled in an opinion issued Wednesday.

She pointed out that another center serving the northern district of Texas has 176 putative class members, "22 times the size of the class presently at issue."

Haines took note of the fact that the population of Moshannon Valley and the other centers fluctuates daily but she stated, "The Court finds that the numerosity requirement (of the law) has not been met."

"The petitioner's motion for reconsideration of class decertification is denied," she concluded.