Attorneys filed a class-action lawsuit Friday demanding that everyone held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at a privately-run detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., be immediately released. 

The lawsuit has four lead plaintiffs, including a Congolese asylum seeker jailed after he arrived in New York City in February and a Filipino mother with a blood condition held by ICE after being released by police on a minor drug charge. But attorneys are asking a judge to include for release all of the approximately 140 people being held at the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility, a former warehouse operated by the publicly-traded company CoreCivic, saying everyone there is at risk of death due to COVID-19. 

Already one officer at the jail died from Covid, CoreCivic announced this week, with another 17 employees testing positive -- not including those who had the virus, recovered, and returned to work. At least 18 detainees have contracted the virus, according to ICE. 

The suit alleges that the close proximity of beds and other unhealthy conditions make the men and women there susceptible to the illness. If not releases, attorneys hope a judge will at least order expedited bail hearings and bar ICE from admitting new people into the facility.

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