SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Human rights advocates in New York City protesting the incarceration of immigrants on July 30, 2020. (Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)
ACLU Urges Biden to Shut Down Detention Facilities 'Used to Abuse and Traumatize Immigrants'
"It's time to end our nation's newest system of mass incarceration of Black and Brown people."
Apr 28, 2021
The ACLU is urging the Biden administration to shut down over three dozen Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities in light of decreasing numbers of people detained and human rights concerns.
"The Biden administration was elected with a mandate to fix our broken immigration system, and immigrant detention is an early test of its resolve," Naureen Shah, senior advocacy and policy counsel at the ACLU, said in a statement.
The rights group laid out its demand in a letter sent Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that singles out 39 detention facilitates for closure. Spanning 15 states, the facilities were either opened by the Trump administration without adequate justification, are in a location that limits detainees' access to legal counsel or medical care, or have been the site of "egregious patterns of inhumane treatment or conditions," according to the ACLU.
Included in the list are facilities on the Detention Watch Network's "First Ten" campaign. The ACLU is a cosponsor of that campaign, and said in the letter it endorses the network's roadmap for detention shutdowns.
Among the facilities named is the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, where detainees say they were subjected to forced medical procedures and abuse.
From the letter:
In September 2020, whistleblowers at Irwin filed a complaint alleging "jarring medical neglect," including forced hysterectomies and an alarming number of involuntary gynecological procedures for women detained at the facility, as well as Covid-19 protocol violations and the shredding and fabrication of medical records. In response, the U.S. House of Representatives called for an investigation and halted the deportation of individuals who had received "any" medical procedure at Irwin. Detained people at Irwin have long reported significant abuses, including a lack of medical and mental healthcare, due process violations, and unsanitary living conditions. ICE's own inspections resulted in reports of sexual abuse, hunger strikes, and suicide watch lists. Irwin, located 188 miles from the nearest metropolitan area, has one of the lowest rates of immigration attorney availability of any detention facility in the country.
Also problematic is another facility in Georgia, the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, according to the letter.
More detained people have died at Stewart than at any other ICE facility in the last four years. Since May 2017, eight detainees have died in custody at Stewart, including four due to Covid-19 and two suicides by individuals who were put in solitary confinement. More than 490 people had been infected with Covid-19 as of spring 2021. Multiple investigations have reported inadequate medical and mental healthcare, use of solitary confinement, and abuse. These issues have been apparent for several years: in 2013, CRCL conducted a site visit and made 17 recommendations, including increasing physician oversight of medical care, ceasing to segregate detained individuals with medical and mental health needs, and putting an end to faith tests to determine an individual's eligibility for religious meals. Located three hours from the nearest major city, Stewart has one of the lowest immigration attorney availability rates of any detention facility in the country.
The ACLU further pointed to the unnecessary "enormous taxpayer expense" for the detention centers given that there are currently "thousands of empty beds," for which, according to an NPR analysis this month, ICE pays $1 million a day. The reporting attributed the lower numbers to ICE's release of hundreds of people to lower the risk of Covid-19 and the fact that the Biden administration is arresting and detaining fewer "unauthorized immigrants."
"Closing detention sites should be an easy decision," said Shah. She urged President Joe Biden to seize what she called "a unique moment to shrink the infrastructure that's been used to abuse and traumatize immigrants for decades."
"It's time to end our nation's newest system of mass incarceration of Black and Brown people," said Shah.
The Detention Watch Network issued a similar message Wednesday.
"The evidence for why the administration needs to take immediate action on ICE detention is overwhelming," said Silky Shah, the group's executive director. "We urge the Biden administration to release people from detention, shut down detention centers, and end detention contracts now."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
The ACLU is urging the Biden administration to shut down over three dozen Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities in light of decreasing numbers of people detained and human rights concerns.
"The Biden administration was elected with a mandate to fix our broken immigration system, and immigrant detention is an early test of its resolve," Naureen Shah, senior advocacy and policy counsel at the ACLU, said in a statement.
The rights group laid out its demand in a letter sent Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that singles out 39 detention facilitates for closure. Spanning 15 states, the facilities were either opened by the Trump administration without adequate justification, are in a location that limits detainees' access to legal counsel or medical care, or have been the site of "egregious patterns of inhumane treatment or conditions," according to the ACLU.
Included in the list are facilities on the Detention Watch Network's "First Ten" campaign. The ACLU is a cosponsor of that campaign, and said in the letter it endorses the network's roadmap for detention shutdowns.
Among the facilities named is the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, where detainees say they were subjected to forced medical procedures and abuse.
From the letter:
In September 2020, whistleblowers at Irwin filed a complaint alleging "jarring medical neglect," including forced hysterectomies and an alarming number of involuntary gynecological procedures for women detained at the facility, as well as Covid-19 protocol violations and the shredding and fabrication of medical records. In response, the U.S. House of Representatives called for an investigation and halted the deportation of individuals who had received "any" medical procedure at Irwin. Detained people at Irwin have long reported significant abuses, including a lack of medical and mental healthcare, due process violations, and unsanitary living conditions. ICE's own inspections resulted in reports of sexual abuse, hunger strikes, and suicide watch lists. Irwin, located 188 miles from the nearest metropolitan area, has one of the lowest rates of immigration attorney availability of any detention facility in the country.
Also problematic is another facility in Georgia, the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, according to the letter.
More detained people have died at Stewart than at any other ICE facility in the last four years. Since May 2017, eight detainees have died in custody at Stewart, including four due to Covid-19 and two suicides by individuals who were put in solitary confinement. More than 490 people had been infected with Covid-19 as of spring 2021. Multiple investigations have reported inadequate medical and mental healthcare, use of solitary confinement, and abuse. These issues have been apparent for several years: in 2013, CRCL conducted a site visit and made 17 recommendations, including increasing physician oversight of medical care, ceasing to segregate detained individuals with medical and mental health needs, and putting an end to faith tests to determine an individual's eligibility for religious meals. Located three hours from the nearest major city, Stewart has one of the lowest immigration attorney availability rates of any detention facility in the country.
The ACLU further pointed to the unnecessary "enormous taxpayer expense" for the detention centers given that there are currently "thousands of empty beds," for which, according to an NPR analysis this month, ICE pays $1 million a day. The reporting attributed the lower numbers to ICE's release of hundreds of people to lower the risk of Covid-19 and the fact that the Biden administration is arresting and detaining fewer "unauthorized immigrants."
"Closing detention sites should be an easy decision," said Shah. She urged President Joe Biden to seize what she called "a unique moment to shrink the infrastructure that's been used to abuse and traumatize immigrants for decades."
"It's time to end our nation's newest system of mass incarceration of Black and Brown people," said Shah.
The Detention Watch Network issued a similar message Wednesday.
"The evidence for why the administration needs to take immediate action on ICE detention is overwhelming," said Silky Shah, the group's executive director. "We urge the Biden administration to release people from detention, shut down detention centers, and end detention contracts now."
The ACLU is urging the Biden administration to shut down over three dozen Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities in light of decreasing numbers of people detained and human rights concerns.
"The Biden administration was elected with a mandate to fix our broken immigration system, and immigrant detention is an early test of its resolve," Naureen Shah, senior advocacy and policy counsel at the ACLU, said in a statement.
The rights group laid out its demand in a letter sent Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that singles out 39 detention facilitates for closure. Spanning 15 states, the facilities were either opened by the Trump administration without adequate justification, are in a location that limits detainees' access to legal counsel or medical care, or have been the site of "egregious patterns of inhumane treatment or conditions," according to the ACLU.
Included in the list are facilities on the Detention Watch Network's "First Ten" campaign. The ACLU is a cosponsor of that campaign, and said in the letter it endorses the network's roadmap for detention shutdowns.
Among the facilities named is the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, where detainees say they were subjected to forced medical procedures and abuse.
From the letter:
In September 2020, whistleblowers at Irwin filed a complaint alleging "jarring medical neglect," including forced hysterectomies and an alarming number of involuntary gynecological procedures for women detained at the facility, as well as Covid-19 protocol violations and the shredding and fabrication of medical records. In response, the U.S. House of Representatives called for an investigation and halted the deportation of individuals who had received "any" medical procedure at Irwin. Detained people at Irwin have long reported significant abuses, including a lack of medical and mental healthcare, due process violations, and unsanitary living conditions. ICE's own inspections resulted in reports of sexual abuse, hunger strikes, and suicide watch lists. Irwin, located 188 miles from the nearest metropolitan area, has one of the lowest rates of immigration attorney availability of any detention facility in the country.
Also problematic is another facility in Georgia, the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, according to the letter.
More detained people have died at Stewart than at any other ICE facility in the last four years. Since May 2017, eight detainees have died in custody at Stewart, including four due to Covid-19 and two suicides by individuals who were put in solitary confinement. More than 490 people had been infected with Covid-19 as of spring 2021. Multiple investigations have reported inadequate medical and mental healthcare, use of solitary confinement, and abuse. These issues have been apparent for several years: in 2013, CRCL conducted a site visit and made 17 recommendations, including increasing physician oversight of medical care, ceasing to segregate detained individuals with medical and mental health needs, and putting an end to faith tests to determine an individual's eligibility for religious meals. Located three hours from the nearest major city, Stewart has one of the lowest immigration attorney availability rates of any detention facility in the country.
The ACLU further pointed to the unnecessary "enormous taxpayer expense" for the detention centers given that there are currently "thousands of empty beds," for which, according to an NPR analysis this month, ICE pays $1 million a day. The reporting attributed the lower numbers to ICE's release of hundreds of people to lower the risk of Covid-19 and the fact that the Biden administration is arresting and detaining fewer "unauthorized immigrants."
"Closing detention sites should be an easy decision," said Shah. She urged President Joe Biden to seize what she called "a unique moment to shrink the infrastructure that's been used to abuse and traumatize immigrants for decades."
"It's time to end our nation's newest system of mass incarceration of Black and Brown people," said Shah.
The Detention Watch Network issued a similar message Wednesday.
"The evidence for why the administration needs to take immediate action on ICE detention is overwhelming," said Silky Shah, the group's executive director. "We urge the Biden administration to release people from detention, shut down detention centers, and end detention contracts now."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.