With just 11 jailed at abusive ICE prison with capacity for 500, now's the time to end the contract

Gabe Ortiz

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday December 14, 2022 · 10:55 AM PST

2022/12/14 · 10:55

MESA, AZ - FEBRUARY 28: Immigration detainees from Honduras arrive by bus to board a deportation flight to San Pedro Sula, Honduras on February 28, 2013 in Mesa, Arizona. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), operates 4-5 flights per week from Mesa to Central America, deporting hundreds of undocumented immigrants detained in western states of the U.S. With the possibility of federal budget sequestration, ICE released 303 immigration detainees in the last week from detention centers throughout Arizona. More than 2,000 immigration detainees remain in ICE custody in the state. Most detainees typically remain in custody for several weeks before they are deported to their home country, while others remain for longer periods while their immigration cases work through the courts. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) — "Immigration detainees from Honduras arrive by bus to board a deportation flight to San Pedro Sula, Honduras on February 28, 2013 in Mesa, Arizona."

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Immigration advocates and legal service providers are asking for an urgent investigation into the “acute and ongoing medical and mental health crisis” facing immigrants detained at a privately-operated facility in New Mexico. Advocates say in their letter to ICE Health Service Corps that a review of medical records reveals “serious” medical failures at CoreCivic’s Torrance County Detention Facility, including detained people afraid of disclosing suicidal ideations to medical staff over fear they’ll be thrown into solitary confinement, which is torture.

When there has appeared to be some discussion around mental health issues, it’s not being taken seriously. “TCDF healthcare providers have exhorted them to ‘think positively’ rather than providing appropriate care,” the letter said.

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”The current medical and mental health crisis in TCDF should not be a surprise to ICE given the facility’s track record,” the letter states, noting that an October 2022 inspection found personnel failed “to document required monitoring of individuals on suicide watch.”

“Just prior to that, in September 2022, the DHS Office of Inspector General disclosed findings on TCDF including: medical staff shortages impacted the level of care asylum-seekers received for suicide watch; healthcare personnel were not familiar with basic guidelines for standards of care; and the facility routinely falsified medical records regarding the administration of medication,” the letter continued.

In March, the DHS watchdog, in an unprecedented call, urged the “immediate removal” of people detained at Torrance, citing “egregious conditions.” ICE’s response was to instead accuse investigators of faking evidence. The watchdog would, in September, again call for detainees to be removed from the facility, saying ICE had not fully addressed most issues.

2022 was, in fact, just downright hellish at Torrance. In August, a Brazilian man died following a suicide attempt. Kesley Vial was just 23. Advocates said at the time that cellmates who found him were “acutely traumatized by his death, yet ICE is refusing to release them so they can seek the mental health care they need.”

”Following his death, and in response to worsening conditions and unconscionably inadequate mental health care, people detained at Torrance staged a hunger strike,” the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, Innovation Law Lab, New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Justice For Our Neighbors, El Paso and Santa Fe Dreamers Project said.

The organizations said in the letter that only 11 people are currently being detained at Torrance. ICE has refrained from transferring more immigrants there following Vial’s death. But despite the handful of detained people, ICE is still paying for more than 500 empty beds. “We have reason to believe that ICE is considering resuming new transfers into the facility in the coming weeks,” they said. The groups noted that while they recognize that CoreCivic has its own medical personnel at the facility, ICE Health Service Corps still has oversight (though ICE staffers have previously criticized ICE Health Service Corps as “severely dysfunctional”).

With just under a dozen people detained at a facility with a capacity for hundreds, this would be an opportune time for the federal government to terminate this site’s contract, as lawmakers and advocates alike have urged. “In October, New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich and Sen. Ben Ray Luján sent a letter to ICE calling on the agency to terminate its contract to detain people in the ‘inhumane’ Torrance facility,” the groups said.

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With just 11 jailed at abusive ICE prison with capacity for 500, now's the time to end the contract

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