immigrant rights groups are joining New Jersey's legal fight against the state's last remaining Detention Facility a federal judge in August sided with the for-profit prison company that runs Elizabeth Detention Center saying that ending detention in New Jersey would be quote nothing short of chaos but as the ACLU and others argue the state is well within its constitutional rights to shut them down senior correspondent Joanna gagas reports this case really is about who has power over what this is not about immigration enforcement it's about health and safety of people within New Jersey's borders the case is between the Murphy Administration and core Civic a for-profit company that operates the Elizabeth immigration Detention Center or EDC core Civic won a lawsuit in August that challenged a state law that prohibits private detention in the state New Jersey's attorney general Matt platkin has now filed an appeal in the third Circuit Court states have a what's called a traditional police power to regulate in the area of health and safety in order to protect their residents and people within their borders and so in this particular case the state makes clear in the legislative findings that the reason they are adopting this legislation is a direct result of the health and safety risks presented by immigration detention the Biden Administration weighed in on behalf of core Civic this summer calling New Jersey's law unconstitutional now 20 eight organizations have filed an amus brief with the court in support of the Attorney General's position citing evidence of abuse and neglect that have occurred in the EDC people died while I was there and after because of neglect and then they tried to say some story like there was some poor guy who had a seizure and they put him in solitary those allegations made by yanette Kario who says she reported many of the instances during her 13 months at EDC although we couldn't independently verify her example she was sent to EDC for leaving the country on a business trip while her application for a green card was still being processed she was detained in spite of a judge saying she should remain free she says she too was denied medical care when she experienced dangerously high blood pressure after learning a family member had died the officer added insult to injury the officer shouted at me I wish your hair explodes uh I said to her uh you cannot talk to me like that she says like this is America I can talk to you however I want if you don't like it go back to your refan country core Civic offered a statement saying our sole job has been and continues to be to help the government solve problems in ways it could not do alone ice regularly conducts both scheduled and unannounced inspections and audits at our facilities with its staff or with independently contracted monitors Dominique Kil Martin is an attorney who wrote an amus brief on behalf of pax Christie a Catholic human rights organ organization they say the oversight is not enough and that the very nature of privately run detention centers are problematic at the federal level at least privately run institutions are not governed by the federal Freedom of Information Act Foya they are inherently motivated to decrease their cost and increase their profits and our research shows that they Implement cost cutting measures at the negative effect of people who are incarcerated and their health and safety the 28 amikas brief contributors focused on the Biden ad administration's own commitment to ending private prison companies yet supporting the continuance of EDC although they have um announced that they will no longer use private prison companies in the criminal context they continue to use private prison companies in the immigration context so there is an inconsistency there California brought a similar appeal to the n9th Circuit Court and lost so even if New Jersey wins this case it could tee up a battle in the US Supreme Court I'm Joanna Gagis NJ Spotlight News