LINCOLN — The Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has launched its first federal lawsuits on behalf of migrants at McCook’s so-called “Cornhusker Clink,” which opened a few months ago as an ICE regional detention center.

The two ACLU suits, one filed Tuesday and the other last week in the U.S. District Court of Nebraska, center on a Guatemalan and an Eastern African. Both cases are tied to growing national conflict over prolonged detention of undocumented migrants but also provide a glimpse into how attorney access is playing out for those jailed at the state’s former Work Ethic Camp now operating as a hybrid state-federal facility for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Grant Friedman, the local ACLU attorney representing the two McCook detainees, called it the “worst experience” he’s had in lawyer-client accommodations in any jail he has visited across the state.

Unsure Of Changed Rules 

He said he’s not witnessed malicious or intentional neglect from staff. Rather, he believes uncertainty over jurisdictional duties has slowed down processes such as setting up lawyer-client meetings. Friedman said that he consults with a half-dozen detainees at the McCook center that Gov. Jim Pillen converted amid opposition from protesters and some state senators.

“They’re unsure about what exactly are the governing rules,” Friedman said of the McCook staff, who are state employees handling federal detainees. “They’re trying to figure it out.”

One result has been delays in consultations with clients, said Friedman, noting a 12-day wait in one McCook situation. In contrast, he said he called up a different county jail to request a visit and was allowed in within hours.

Friedman said it took a week to set up a virtual video meeting this past Monday with a McCook client, only to have the appointment rescheduled due to an apparent Wi-Fi problem at the ICE jail.

While Friedman sometimes drives three hours from Lincoln to McCook, the more convenient option sometimes is meeting virtually. Detainee accounts are charged for those calls, he said. 

“So we are having to be very judicious,” he said. “I’m a pro-bono attorney. I don’t want them to have to pay even $30 for these fees.”

He said the McCook staff is “working with what they have,” but that kinks have made his job “a lot more difficult and frustrating than it needs to be.”

Pillen ‘Proud’ 

Asked to respond, a spokesperson for Pillen, Laura Strimple, offered a brief remark: “Governor Pillen stands with the vast majority of Nebraskans who believe in the rule of law and are proud that the state is doing its part to secure the southern border.”

Homeland Security and ICE officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pillen’s team volunteered to help the Trump administration carry out its mass deportation strategy, and is being fully reimbursed to house detainees and to make necessary modifications to the prison property.

Limited access to the facility also has come up, particularly from State. Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha who publicly criticized the Pillen administration for twice denying her entry into the McCook facility in mid-November. The governor’s staff subsequently helped to set up a group tour for interested lawmakers. Approval still had to go through the feds. Reporters also have been told that inquiries regarding detainees should be directed to the ICE media office.

Little has been reported about the McCook detainees’ access to lawyers, advocacy agencies or interpreters. 

Eritrea And Slavery 

On Tuesday, ACLU Nebraska filed the lawsuit on behalf of Semere Gherezgiher of Eritrea, an East African country that borders Sudan. The legal nonprofit argued that Gherezgiher’s individual circumstances and the federal government’s handling of his case have subjected him to indefinite detention — and allegedly violated his right to due process and legal precedent limiting the length of detention after a removal order.

Gherezgiher, now 32, fled Eritrea in 2016 to avoid forced military conscription and what he said was a hostile, long-embedded dictatorship. Family members had been forced into military service, which the ACLU notes has been described by Amnesty International as indefinite and sometimes amounts to slavery. Gherezgiher was in numerous countries before arriving in California around 2022.

Shortly after his U.S. arrival, an immigration judge ordered Gherezgiher’s removal but specified he could not be returned to Eritrea under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The judge did not call for detention at that time, though, and Gherezgiher moved to Minnesota, where ICE arrested him in May 2025 and transferred him to McCook late last year.

Immigration officials at one point tried to deport the East African to Germany but could not secure necessary approvals. Says the ACLU, “Gherezgiher now lives in a kind of limbo, with no end in sight for his ongoing detention and no clear path to a timely release or removal to yet another country.”

According to the lawsuit, Gherezgiher has no criminal convictions and has not received a bond hearing. The ACLU seeks a court order for his release. “So that he can determine next steps as a man without a country while in the community instead of in custody.”

Gherezgiher offered a brief statement: “I want to be free.”

Guatemala to Iowa to McCook

Last week, the ACLU also filed a lawsuit on behalf of Carlos Roldan Chang, a 44-year-old Guatemalan held at McCook. 

According to the Jan. 26 lawsuit, Roldan Chang had been in the U.S. about 20 years and, prior to his Dec. 3 detention, was working full-time in construction in Des Moines. He is one of many undocumented immigrants nationally who have been denied a bond hearing based on the Trump administration’s new interpretation of law related to bond hearings.

That new interpretation issued last summer sought to overturn a longstanding practice and instead required mandatory detention and no release on bond for most immigrants facing deportation.

That guidance hangs on a section of immigration law applied historically to newly arrived migrants, not those who already had been in the U.S. for years, even if they entered without authorization. Observers say it has the effect of pushing detainees to self-deport rather than battle what could be months or years in detention.

Despite a federal judge’s more recent declaration and rebuke of the detention directive, the no-bond situation has continued for many. Earlier this month, the country’s top immigration court official ordered immigration judges to disregard the federal court’s orders.

In Roldan Chang’s lawsuit, ACLU Nebraska argues that denial of a bond hearing violates the Immigration and Nationality Act and the federal judge’s order in the class action lawsuit brought by the national ACLU, the Southern California ACLU affiliate and other immigrant rights advocates.  

Friedman said courts have repeatedly stated that immigration officials cannot “wholesale deny” people the right to seek release on bond while they fight deportation proceedings. 

“Our client has a right to make his case and to receive an individual custody determination, as has been the usual practice for decades,” he said.

The ACLU seeks immediate release of Roldan Chang or a bond hearing within seven days of a judge’s order. A hearing has not yet been scheduled. 

Defendants in both cases are Kristi Noem, Homeland Security secretary, Pam Bondi, U.S. attorney general, Todd Lyons, acting ICE director, David Easterwood, acting ICE field director and the warden of the McCook detention center.

Friedman said he expects the ACLU’s spotlight on McCook to continue.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/02/04/aclu-sues-on-behalf-of-mccook-ice-detainees-criticizes-attorney-client-access/