ICE responds to federal complaint filed by detainees at Georgia detention center
A group of men held in a Georgia detention center by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have filed a complaint alleging the facility’s staff members abused them and violated their human rights.
The complaint, filed Monday with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, was written by the detainees and filed with assistance from Project South, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Detention Watch Network and Georgia Detention Watch, said Azadeh Shahshahani, Project South’s legal and advocacy director.
According to the complaint and Project South, a social justice non-profit organization based in Atlanta, detainees at Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin — about an hour away from Columbus — have been denied outdoor recreation for 26 days and facility officials have used excessive force on men who are protesting their treatment.
In a statement, an ICE spokesperson disputed some detainees’ claims that facility officials used rubber bullets on them. ICE said that detainees were restricted from the recreation yards for the safety of the staff and the security of the facility, but the men were given additional indoor recreation time.
“They have taken away our right to recreation within this prison,” the detainee’s complaint reads. “We are desperate. Many of us came in search of freedom, fleeing persecution and torture by dictators in countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. And we find all these abuses that cause us to suffer even more. Many would rather be deported and die in their own countries than die slowly with the mental torture that we live with here.”
The complaint comes after a protest at the detention center last month. Details about what happened during the protest differ. According to the detainee’s complaint, 72 men held a protest in the recreation area. In less than 24 hours, special forces handcuffed the protesters and “caused them to disappear from the detention center.”
“They cut off phone communications to keep us from reporting anything about these events to our families, they restrict visits, and nothing at all comes to light,” the complaint reads.
In a letter to Georgia’s congressional delegation earlier this month, Project South alleged that a group of 40 to 60 men, mostly Cubans, began a protest Sept. 11. The men wrote “libertad” (freedom) on their shirts and held up signs that said “help” while standing in the detention center’s recreation yard. The men continued to peacefully protest before facility officials violently shut them down, according to their letter.
Some of the detained men told Project South that “riot police” used gas bombs and rubber bullets to stop the protest.
“The men suffered so much. They just wanted to talk to someone. They weren’t doing anything violent,” according to the letter. “The men were reported to be coughing and unable to breathe. Another man noted that he could see the Cuban men trying to run away from being shot but there was nowhere to run to.”
ICE’s account of the protest differs from Project South’s and the detainee’s complaint. According to ICE spokesperson Lindsay Williams, a group of detainees refused to depart the recreation area on Sept. 11. Over a period of 18 hours, facility staff and ICE leadership talked with the detainees to get them to leave the area. ICE denied using gas bombs and rubber bullets on the protesters. The agency, he said, doesn’t have or use rubber bullets.
“When the ICE detainees refused to comply, facility staff deployed pepper spray to disperse the group. Medical staff evaluated all individuals who came in contact with the pepper spray. One detainee claimed an incident-related injury, was treated at a local hospital and returned to the facility,” Williams said in an email. “This incident has been the only disturbance at this facility in the past 90 days.”
Citing security and privacy concerns, ICE does not comment on the movement of detainees to and from ICE facilities.
Other abuses outlined in the detainee’s complaint include allegations that Stewart immigration judge Dan Trimble unfairly prevents men from being released from the ICE facility. In 2016, The Marshall Project, a non-profit criminal justice news organization, called Stewart’s immigration court America’s toughest where less than 2% of men won their deportation cases.
“This judge makes decisions which are more personal than professional,” according to the complaint. “Even when the requirements to apply for parole or bond are met, he denies any possibility of such benefit. ...As a result of these decisions, a series of suicide attempts, hunger strikes, protests, and other events have been unleashed.”
Men who report they are physically ill or dealing with mental illnesses are prescribed pills that keep them sedated. Some are isolated in a 2-by-2-meter room “where (they) are naked and alone,” according to the complaint.
In Project South’s letter to Georgia’s congressional delegation, it and other organizations called for an investigation into conditions at the detention center and outlined further alleged abuses. Project South, in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University Law School’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, published a report in 2017 that highlighted issues at Stewart. The organization said no improvements have been made at the facility.
“Recent accounts from detained immigrants at Stewart indicate overcrowding, understaffed medical personnel, verbal and physical abuse, disregard of medical needs, accessibility concerns, and insufficient nutrition with irregular mealtimes. One detained immigrant remarked: ‘They call this place a black hole for a reason,’” according to the letter.
In the ICE statement, Williams said the federal agency provides “safe, humane and appropriate” conditions for its detainees.
“ICE has a series of detention standards that ensure that individuals with medical conditions or other specific needs receive exceptional care while in our custody, which exceed the standards of most local jails and prisons. Individuals in our custody are also provided access to legal representation, translation services, recreation, and a multitude of other offerings,” he said in the release.
Four men detained at Stewart Detention Center have died since May 2017. Two of those men died by suicide. The most recent detainee who died was 44-year-old Pedro Arriago-Santoya. ICE officials listed the primary cause of death as cardio-pulmonary arrest followed by multi-organ system failure; endocarditis, an infection of the heart’s inner lining; dilated cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease; and respiratory failure. Arriago-Santoya died at a Columbus hospital.
In his death report, ICE officials said Arriago-Santoya refused to provide officials with a history of his medical or mental health issues, previous surgeries or hospitalizations, or current medication use.
Stewart Detention Center is one of the nation’s largest ICE detention facilities. Nearly 2,000 men are detained here.
“It’s really heartbreaking that these abuses are happening on a daily basis,” Shahshahani said.
This story was originally published October 28, 2019 at 1:30 PM.