Washington, DC — A new report released today by the Office of Inspector General (OIG), Concerns about ICE Detainee Treatment and Care at Detention Facilities, supports longstanding concerns and documentation from immigrant rights advocates about egregious conditions, abusive treatment and abysmal mismanagement at immigrant detention centers across the country. The report comes as Trump calls for a massive cut in the OIG budget in an attempt to further embolden Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to act with impunity, erase measures of accountability and obscure any existing transparency.
The report inspected and found serious deficiencies at the following facilities: Santa Ana City Jail in California, Hudson Detention Center in New Jersey, Stewart Detention Center in Georgia and Otero Detention Center in New Mexico.
Key findings from the report include:
- Medical staff not using available interpretation services during medical exams at multiple facilities (not specified) jeopardizing the health of detained individuals who aren’t not able to provide their medical history or fully explain their symptoms or concerns without interpretation. Inspectors also uncovered concerning delays in medical care at Stewart, Santa Ana and Hudson.
- Serious problems with the grievance procedure. At multiple facilities (not specified), detained individuals reported that “staff obstructed or delayed their grievances or intimidated them, through fear of retaliation, into not complaining.” At Stewart, review of a sample of grievances found that “[m]any serious complaints from the sample at this facility included only cursory and uninformative explanations of the resolution.”
- Lack phone access as required. At Otero, inspectors found broken phones. At Stewart, the OIG complaint hotline was improperly restricted.
- Abusive and disrespectful treatment. Detained people at all four facilities reported improper and disrespectful treatment. At Santa Ana, video corroborated allegations that a guard yelled at and inappropriately threatened detained people.
- Abusive use of solitary confinement was documented at Stewart, Santa Ana and Otero.
- Improper strip searches at the Santa Ana Jail.
“The realities documented by the OIG inspectors, and many more, are endemic to the entire detention system,” said Mary Small, policy director at Detention Watch Network. “The findings of the report support our ongoing call to immediately release people from detention, as ICE has proven time and time again to be incapable of meeting basic standards for humane treatment. Furthermore, the report is particularly timely as Congress continues to stall budget decisions for fiscal year 2018,” Small added. “Our elected officials must stand with immigrant communities. It’s time to stop wasting taxpayer dollars on the abusive and deadly immigration enforcement system; the lives of our loved ones and our collective future are at stake.”
Immigrant rights advocates working on the inspected facilities offered the following statements:
Azadeh Shahshahani, Project South: “As our year-long documentation showed, Stewart is rife with abuse and should have shut down long ago. Some examples of human rights violations include: exploitation of immigrant labor for operation of the facility, reports of maggots being found in the food, and responding to hunger strikes with threats of force-feeding. The May 2017 death of 27-year-old Jean-Carlos Jimenez-Joseph who was held in solitary for 19 days should have served as a final wake-up call and resulted in the immediate closure of the facility. We hope that the Georgia Congressional delegation will take action on the letter signed by 70 Georgia and national organizations and investigate this facility.”
Christina Fialho, Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC): “Although the Santa Ana City Jail is no longer a contracted immigrant jail, it still holds hundreds of human beings inside deplorable conditions where people are subjected to strip searches that often occur under unsanitary conditions and sometimes in full view of other people. The City of Santa Ana has an obligation to its residents to close this jail and begin to heal its community,” said Christina Fialho, an attorney and the co-founder/executive director of CIVIC, which filed a federal civil rights complaint against the Santa Ana City Jail about unlawful strip searches nearly two years ago. Fialho added, “We have filed countless complaints against ICE over the years regarding inadequate medical care at Hudson, a pattern or practice of sexual violence throughout the system, physical abuse at various immigration prisons, and more. But rather than addressing our concerns, ICE has adopted a head-in-the-sand approach, denying that any problems exist. The OIG report is only the tip of the iceberg; imagine the widespread abuse we would find if all 210 immigrant prisons were reviewed. A starting point in tackling this culture of impunity is greater transparency from our government institutions.
Marcela Hernandez, Organizer, Immigrant Youth Coalition: “In our weekly visits to Santa Ana Jail’s trans pod, we documented multiple abuses such as the women being kept in their cells for more than 20 hours a day and violent verbal, emotional and physical abuse. There was also a huge lack of adequate medical attention to the point that one of the women collapsed, was taken to the local hospital and was in a coma for weeks. She wasn’t allowed to finish her rehabilitation and was taken back to Santa Ana Jail where her health continue to deteriorate instead of getting better. For these reasons we continue to support the fight against trans detention and all immigrant detentions.”
Lourdes Ortiz, Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee (DMSC): “Through testimonies and group activities, DMSC knows that the conditions at the Otero Processing Center interfere with people’s access to justice and break their spirit. This year, the Otero Processing Center was sending detained women to the County jail part of the facility. Ironically, women reported better conditions at the jail than at the immigration detention center. Attorneys struggle to have access to their clients; there are no contact visits, and attorneys have had to wait for up to three hours before being allowed to see their client. This report is just the tip of the iceberg. We hope that other organizations, public officials, and the community will join us in demanding an investigation and holding ICE accountable.”
Sally Pillay, First Friends of New Jersey and New York: “The OIG’s report clearly highlights the neglect and abuse that immigrants face on a constant basis. Hudson County Jail and Rehabilitation Center (Hudson) is known for its substandard medical care — This year alone there have been two deaths at the facility, one of which was Rolando Meza Espinoza who was in need of medical attention. The unacceptable and avoidable death of Espinoza is representative of the substandard medical care and oversight provided to individuals detained in Hudson. It is not acceptable that taxpayers dollars are used to incarcerate our immigrant brothers and sisters, while these facilities are plagued by abuse, mistreatment and a lack of accountability. We are calling on Hudson County to adopt the most recent Performance Based National Detention Standards and to work with local advocates to form a truly Independent Medical Oversight Board that to monitor the facility.”
Serges Demefack, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Immigrant Rights Program in New Jersey: “The AFSC Immigrant Rights Program in New Jersey commends the OIG for its report which points out to some of the conditions immigrant rights advocates in New Jersey have consistently asked for improvement. Recently the circumstances leading to two deaths in June and July 2017 at HCCF tell a story of the system designed to fail immigrants. A system where medical care is withheld and sick calls go unanswered for weeks at a time. Detainees at HCCF are consistently mistreated, and in many cases accused of faking their illness even though there are evidences backed by testimonies from other detainees demonstrating that they are chronically ill. The financial incentive tied to the detention quota is one of the root causes of the broken immigration detention system in Hudson County and elsewhere. We need to hold the failing medical and mental health systems at HCCF accountable. This includes the administrator and those elected officials who repeatedly support inefficient and often unjust jail management. We must begin eliminating a system that is completely lacking accountability.”
Dylan Corbett, Hope Border Institute: “While we welcome this step towards holding ICE accountable by the Office of the Inspector General, the abuses identified at the Otero Detention Center immigration are not an anomaly. We know that immigration agencies and officials in border communities routinely fail to respect basic human rights and human dignity. The detention of migrants and asylum seekers who pose no threat to our communities is fundamentally immoral and together we must work to end it.”