The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found conditions at four immigration detention facilities that “undermine the protection of detainees’ rights, their humane treatment, and the provision of a safe and healthy environment," a new 19-page report released Thursday revealed.
Based on calls from detainees to the Office of Inspector General Hotline, unannounced visits were made to six facilities. Inspections of five detention facilities raised concerns about the “treatment and care” of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees at four locations.
At the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., — the same facility where earlier this year a detainee committed suicide — federal inspectors found some detainees were assigned mistakenly to housing. This means some detainees with high-risk criminal convictions were housed with low-risk detainees, affecting detainees' safety.
Inspectors also found that because of a staff shortage, male detainees could not be patted down and thus alternative measures such as being “wanded” were used. This measure is not totally effective, which meant some detainees could have entered with non-metallic items or drugs.
At the Santa Ana City Jail in California, staff strip-searched all detainees upon admission to the facility. Inspectors reported that the staff failed to document the strip searches as required, which meant there is no way to tell if the strip searches were justified or if they “infringed on the privacy and rights of detainees.”
Though the facilities were not listed, the inspector general found numerous causes of language barriers. At some facilities, staff did not use interpretation services for detainees who did not speak English.
At three facilities, detainees were not given an ICE handbook in a language they could understand. That handbook has critical information for detainees, such as how they can access legal counsel and medical care.
Language barriers prevented detainees from understanding medical staff, and vice versa.
“As a result, detainees may not have been providing enough information about their medical conditions to ensure adequate medical treatment while in detention,” the inspector general report reads.
The inspector general found that detainees complaints and grievances were often “obstructed or delayed” by staff, which could have prevented them “from filing grievances about serious concerns that should be addressed and resolved.”
At the Otero County Processing Center in New Mexico, for example, the telephones that detainees could use to call the DHS inspector general were not working.
Investigators interviewed detainees at four facilities where they alleged staff mistreated them by yelling or using disrespectful and inappropriate language. For example, at the Santa Ana City Jail, a guard allegedly yelled at detainees for several minutes and threatened a lockdown — an incident corroborated by surveillance video footage.
Staff also allegedly interrupted or detailed Muslim prayer times at the Stewart Detention Center.
Staff at the Otero County Processing Center, Stewart Detention Center and the Santa Ana City Jail were all found to violate policy by misuse of disciplinary or administrative segregation. In one example, a detainee reported being locked down for multiple days for “sharing coffee with another detainee.”
“Some detainees were locked down in their cells for violations of minor rules without required written notification of reasons for lock-down and appeal options,” the inspector general said.
At the Otero County Processing Center and Stewart Detention Center, the inspector general observed detainee bathrooms in poor condition that included mold and peeling paint on walls, floors, and showers. Some detainee bathrooms had no hot water or no cold water in the Stewart Detention Center.
Multiple detainees at the Hudson County Jail and Stewart Detention Center complained that some of the basic hygienic supplies, such as toilet paper, shampoo, soap, lotion, and toothpaste, were not provided quickly or at all when they ran out of them.
The inspector general admitted that “treatment and care of detainees at facilities can be challenging,” and asked Acting ICE Director Tom Homan develop a process for ICE field offices to conduct specific reviews of all detention facilities named in the report.
