The ACLU is suing the Biden Administration over the fact that dozens of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees held in Newark are being transferred to jails around the country.

The Essex County jail in Newark is stopping its practice of jailing ICE detainees, and a bill to ban future ICE detention centers in the state awaits a signature from Governor Phil Murphy. But instead of releasing the detainees as they await their immigration hearings, ICE this week transferred dozens of asylum seekers and other undocumented immigrants with families and attorneys in New Jersey to detention centers in other states. 

The ACLU says that means attorneys can't properly represent the immigrants in fighting their deportation cases. Attorneys argued, for example, that they have difficulty meeting with clients in distant detention centers in order to gather enough information to prove the need for asylum. They also said there are legal complications once the detainees are placed in different judicial jurisdictions. 

The lawsuit doesn't demand that detainees are released as they fight their immigration cases, as many activists have called for. Instead, it says they just shouldn't be moved to detention centers more than 100 miles away from Newark. 

ICE wouldn't give details about the transfers. And a spokesman wouldn't comment on the allegation that detainees and their attorneys aren't given advance notice about when and where detainees are moved.