(CN) — A federal class action against the private security firm MVM, the sole contractor in charge of transporting minors in accordance with the first Trump administration’s “family separation policy,” cleared its first legal hurdle on Monday.
U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw declined to dismiss most of a father and son’s class action claiming the firm was contracted by the government to transport children detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border during President Donald Trump’s first term. The plaintiffs included claims of child abduction, torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment in their suit filed in July 2024.
“This is a huge victory,” said attorney Mary Van Houten Harper, a partner at Hausfeld representing the named plaintiffs in the case going by the aliases “Padre” and “Junior.” “The vast majority of our claims are moving forward, including the child abduction claim.”
As to the claims of child abduction and torture, Sabraw, a George W. Bush appointee, found that under California law, the statute of limitations window began not when Padre and Junior, then 16-years-old, were separated in 2017, but when they were reunited on July 20, 2023, making them timely.
Sabraw also allowed a charge of enforced disappearance — stemming from the plaintiffs’ claim that Junior and other separated children were taken to shelters, some across the country from their parents, and both sides were denied information about where the other was — finding that MVW’s actions fit the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons’ definition of arrest, detention, abduction and concealment.
But Sabraw agreed in his 21-page ruling to dismiss claims of civil rights conspiracy and some state law claims, because, he found, they fell outside the statute of limitations — though he will allow the plaintiffs to refile an amended version of their complaint.
The judge said the plaintiffs “fail to address the federal cases finding the accrual date for these kinds of constitutional claims is the date of separation, not the date of reunification.”
The judge also declined to hand MVM immunity — which it said it should have because of its government ties — because the company hadn’t filed a copy of the contract it signed with the federal government.
“This alleged contract is referenced throughout the complaint, but defendant did not submit a copy of the contract with its motion,” Sabraw wrote. “In the absence of that evidence … it is … impossible for the court to determine if defendant had discretion in carrying out its contractual obligations, which would also defeat defendant’s claim of derivative sovereign immunity.
He also said this contract would not shield the company from the plaintiffs’ torture claims.
“Defendant fails to cite any authority to support its argument that conduct performed pursuant to a government contract renders that conduct exempt from claims of torture,” Sabraw wrote.
“MVM was the sole government contractor for ICE, responsible for transporting children, physically, away from parents, often thousands of miles across the country,” Harper, the plaintiff’s attorney, said. “This was an unlawful scheme to separate children without due process.”
Attorneys for MVM did not return emails requesting a comment on the ruling.
Around 5,000 children, including some infants, were separated from their parents between the summer of 2017 and the end of 2019, part of a “zero tolerance policy” aimed at deterring illegal border crossings.
In most cases, the adults found crossing the border were held in jail or deported, while the children were placed under the supervision of the Department of Health and Human Services — though not before some of the kids were forced to wait for weeks in overcrowded detention centers.
In the face of widespread outrage, the Trump administration backed down and discontinued the policy in 2018. Later, Sabraw — who also oversaw a lawsuit against the federal government for the policy — issued an injunction against the president reimplementing the policy, and ordered the government to reunite all of the separated children.
In 2023, the Biden administration agreed to settle the lawsuit, which funded efforts to reunite the families and offered a path to asylum for many of them.
MVM is described by the plaintiffs in their suit as a private security firm founded by three former secret service agents that “previously provided armed guards for security agencies, such as the CIA in Iraq.”
They say that since at least as far back as 2014, MVM has been contracted by the federal government to escort and transport unaccompanied minors detained by ICE.