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Detention Centers

Immigrant Detainees Strike Over $1 A Day Pay, Working Conditions

August 10, 2022 Alejandra Quintero, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
At two federal detention centers in California, more than 50 immigrant workers are on strike over unsafe working conditions and low wages. “We are being exploited for our labor and are being paid $1 per day to clean the dormitories,” said strikers at a central California detention center in a June statement received by public radio station KQED. Detained workers, known as “housing porters,” participate in a supposedly volunteer working program while locked up. They use their earnings to pay for the exorbitant cost of phone calls and commissary items like dental floss and tortillas. “They are compelled to do this,” says Alan Benjamin, a delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council who heard directly from striking workers during a call with the labor council. “It's not voluntary; it's compulsory work, without proper sanitation and equipment.”

Will Investing In Community Groups Keep Immigrants Out Of Detention?

August 24, 2021 Angelika Albaladejo, Capital and Main. , , ,
“It’s solidarity, not charity,” said Grace Kindeke, who helps people recently released from immigration detention with housing, food, legal and health services in her community of Concord, New Hampshire. Immigrants come to the United States looking for safety and stability. But instead, many find confusion navigating the complexity of the immigration system, said Kindeke, who works with the nonprofit American Friends Service Committee. Language barriers, limited cash and the federal government’s reliance on detention can prevent recently arrived migrants from getting a lawyer, understanding their legal obligations and settling into a new community, especially if they’re dealing with trauma, Kindeke said. In her experience, immigrants are highly motivated to comply with government requirements, as long as they understand what’s being asked of them and have the basics to get by.

US Halts Deportations Of Women Who Allege Medical Abuse In ICE Detention

November 25, 2020 Julia Conley, Commondreams. , , , ,
Women who have spoken out about alleged abuse by a gynecologist while in U.S. custody won a reprieve Tuesday when the U.S. Department of Justice agreed to halt their deportations until President Donald Trump is nearly out of office.  The motion filed by the DOJ must still be approved by a federal judge, but the department reached an agreement with the lawyers of several women who say Dr. Mahendra Amin abused them and subjected them to invasive procedures without their consent while they were being held at Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia.

US Deports Migrant Women Who Alleged Abuse By Georgia Doctor

November 11, 2020 Nomaan Merchant, AP News. , , ,
The Trump administration is trying to deport several women who allege they were mistreated by a Georgia gynecologist at an immigration detention center, according to their lawyers. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has already deported six former patients who complained about Dr. Mahendra Amin, who has been accused of operating on migrant women without their consent or performing procedures that were medically unnecessary and potentially endangered their ability to have children.

Migrant Parents Separated From Their Kids Still Can’t Be Found

October 22, 2020 Dominique Mosbergen, Huff Post. , , ,
Lawyers tasked with identifying and reuniting families separated in 2017 and 2018 under the Trump administration’s so-called “zero tolerance” border policy say they still haven’t been able to locate the parents of at least 545 migrant children, according to a Tuesday court filing from the American Civil Liberties Union. A majority of these parents — “approximately two-thirds,” the filing said — are believed to have been deported to Central America without their children, some of whom were “just babies” at the time of the separation, ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt told CNN this week.

Why The US Still Needs To Abolish ICE

October 16, 2020 Silky Shah, NBC News. , , ,
In 2018, one of the biggest demands of immigrant rights activists was “Abolish ICE.” The rallying cry intensified in part due to the Trump administration’s border policy, which separated parents from children and horrified the world. Just a few days ago, leaked tapes of the first lady exposed her indifference toward the policy in 2018, and reminded us of the administration’s complete disdain of the humanity of people seeking asylum. Today, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is still targeting and detaining hundreds of thousands of people, and separating loved ones from their families and communities.

Selling Ourselves For Safety: A Look At The Migration Industrial Complex

September 28, 2020 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
The climate crisis, wars, violent states and economic crashes are driving migration around the world and in this capitalist global environment, it is no surprise that a profiteering industrial complex has evolved. I speak with Siobhan McGuirk and Adrienne Pine, co-authors of "Asylum for Sale: Profit and protest in the migration industry," about the ways capitalism both drives migration and benefits from it. They discuss who has the resources to migrate, the problem with how asylum-seeking is framed in the public discourse and courts and the diverse international resistance that is forming to demand universal access to asylum.

New York: Protest At ICE Headquarters Over Forced Hysterectomies

September 18, 2020 Graeme Massie, Independent. , , ,
A security guard brandished her gun at demonstrators who forced their way into ICE headquarters in New York City to protest claims of ‘mass hysterectomies’ being performed on immigrant women. The video of the female guard pointing the weapon at Abolish ICE protestors as they chanted inside the city’s Jacob K Javits Federal Building in Manhattan was posted on social media. The guard reportedly works for private security firm Paragon Systems, which provides protection for the building that also houses Immigration and Customs Enforcement and FBI offices.

Nurse Alleges Forced Sterilizations, Medical Malpractice At Immigrant Detention Center

September 17, 2020 Niles Niemuth, WSWS. , , ,
A whistleblower complaint filed on behalf of a nurse who worked at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in southern Georgia until July alleges that a number of immigrant women detained there were subjected to sterilization through hysterectomies without their consent. In the complaint, filed by the legal advocacy group Project South, the former nurse describes conditions at the center as akin to an “experimental concentration camp.” The complaint also details the refusal of the center’s administrators to carry out COVID-19 testing or implement protective measures, putting detainees and employees throughout the country’s network of detention centers at risk of infection.

New FOIA Docs Expose Conditions In Private Immigration Prison

August 23, 2020 Alan Macleod, Mintpress News. , , ,
New documents shed light on what activists are calling “a dark pattern of abuse” at a privately-run, for-profit prison in Virginia used by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Obtained by the civil rights group the Advancement Project under the Freedom of Information Act, the documents describe a long pattern of abuse, neglect and mismanagement of detainees at Immigration Centers of America (ICA) Farmville — a facility where almost everyone has coronavirus. In 2015, for instance, one detainee was pepper sprayed in the face while in full restraints.

ICE Guards ‘Systematically’ Sexually Assault Detainees

August 15, 2020 Lomi Kriel, Pro Publica. , , , ,
Guards in an immigrant detention center in El Paso sexually assaulted and harassed inmates in a “pattern and practice” of abuse, according to a complaint filed by a Texas advocacy group urging the local district attorney and federal prosecutors to conduct a criminal investigation. The allegations, detailed in a filing first obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, maintain that guards systematically assaulted at least three people in a facility overseen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — often in areas of the detention center not visible to security cameras.

Central Oregonians Stall ICE Bus With Impromptu Protest

August 14, 2020 Emily Cureton, OPB.org. , , ,
An attempt by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to detain two men in Bend did not go as planned Wednesday afternoon, after hundreds of protesters stalled the action for more than 10 hours, leading to a standoff with Border Patrol agents later that night. Immigration attorney Micaela Guthrie, who was among the first advocates on the scene, said the men were taken into custody in the morning, then loaded on to two buses. One man was detained at a gas station and the other was pulled over in his car, the men told a translator by yelling through the closed windows of the bus.

Deaths In Immigration Detention Are At A Record High

August 13, 2020 Katy Murdza, Immigration Impact. , , , ,
Two men died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody on August 5. One of the men died in a hospital after being diagnosed with COVID-19, while the other died in his cell of a massive intercranial hemorrhage. These tragedies increased the total deaths in ICE custody this fiscal year to 17, the highest number since 2006. Many—if not all—of the deaths that occur in ICE custody are avoidable. More than twice as many people have died in ICE custody this year than last year. Unfortunately, with 1,065 active COVID-19 cases in ICE detention, that number will likely increase before the fiscal year ends in September.

GEO Group’s ICE Jail Lies To Immigration Lawyer

July 19, 2020 Alex Binder, Unicorn Riot. , , ,
Aurora, CO — On the morning of June 30, 2020, Pablo Mackleen Grijalva’s lawyer tried to contact him at the GEO Group’s ICE jail where he is detained, but to her shock, the officer on the phone told her he was not there. She immediately called Kesha Davalos Grijalva, Mackleen Grijalva’s wife, and told her what the officer said. After calling the jail a second time, an officer confirmed that Mackleen Grijalva was going to be deported that day with others in the weekly deportation van. When Davalos Grijalva heard the deportation news, she called her friends and family and a group of them decided to drive to the small airport near the Denver International Airport (DIA) where deportation planes depart.

COVID-19 Behind The Walls

July 7, 2020 Miranda Crissman, Workers.org. , , ,
At least 48,764 cases of COVID-19 have been reported among prisoners. The data suggest that even these numbers may be underreported. Texas leads in the number of cases with 7,757, followed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons with 6,621 cases. Ohio, Michigan, California and Tennessee are right behind Texas and the BOP with 4,950, 3,991, 3,800, and 3,171 cases, respectively. At least 585 prisoner deaths from the virus have been reported, with 91 from the federal BOP,  84 in Ohio, 69 in Texas, 68 in Michigan and the rest in other states. As far as prison staff are concerned, 10,342 cases and 42 deaths have been reported. (The Marshall Project, June 25) Across the country, 658 youth in juvenile facilities and 771 staff members have reportedly been infected with the virus.
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