Media Contact:
Alex Mensing, California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, alex[@]ccijustice.org, 415.684.5463
December 16, 2024
For Immediate Release
With ICE Detention Center Contract Up for Renewal, Deluge of Federal Complaints Continues with New Allegations of Medical Abuse and Weaponization
Complaint filed amid mounting pressure to end ICE contracts with for-profit prison company GEO Group
San Francisco, CA – 21 people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Golden State Annex (Golden State) and Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center (Mesa Verde) filed a federal complaint on Monday with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) over ICE’s continued medical failures and weaponization of care at the two California immigrant detention centers. The complaint, which details medical workers accusing detained people of “malingering” in order to limit access to counsel, medical mix-ups, failure to address acute and chronic health issues, language access issues and more, is just one of several federal complaints filed this year over disturbing abuse and conditions at Golden State and Mesa Verde. It follows years of resistance by detained community members and disturbing revelations of harm in ICE facilities.
This October, California Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren and U.S. Senator Alex Padilla led a letter signed by six Congressmembers to “reiterate [their] call for DHS to end contracts with GEO for Mesa Verde and Golden State” in light of confirmed “disturbing and ongoing reports” of deplorable conditions. Two weeks ago, California’s Attorney General, Rob Bonta, sent a letter to DHS Secretary Mayorkas and ICE Director Lechleitner describing serious failings at ICE detention centers in the state, including over problems with medical care. Growing calls for an end to the ICE contracts at Golden State and Mesa Verde are taking an urgent tone, with the $1.5 billion contract up for renewal this month.
One anonymous complainant, whose identity has been shielded to avoid retaliation by ICE and GEO Group, said: “I’m at the mercy of people that don’t care if I live or die. They don’t know my name. I’m an annoyance to them. I’m a mosquito to them. The people that are supposed to help me are the ones that ignore me.”
In one case, a mental health provider at the facility mocked a patient that suffers from auditory and visual hallucinations and who had endured solitary confinement, telling them, “no one loves you. Tell the voices to care about you.” According to the complaint, when the patient “alerted the psychiatrist that he would tell a lawyer about this misconduct, [the provider] simply shrugged it off. After the Complainant filed a grievance, ICE responded that they did not understand their complaint because it was in Spanish.”
Mounting concern over the health of people detained by ICE in California also comes as GEO Group, the private prison company that operates Golden State and Mesa Verde, attempts to avoid oversight and scrutiny by filing a federal lawsuit to challenge a new state law allowing public health officials to protect the health and safety of individuals held in detention facilities.
“These are people’s lives we’re talking about,” said Ana Linares Montoya, Vaccine Education and Empowerment in Detention (VEED) Coordinator for the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. “The number of people I’ve spoken to who have been forced to suffer for days, weeks or even months without relief from serious medical issues, is just appalling, and in many cases they end up with permanent damage to their health. People aren’t just crying out for help, they’re organizing, taking collective action and filing complaints. It’s time for our elected officials to terminate these contracts and put an end to the injustice of immigrant detention.”
“To extract maximum profit, the GEO corporation denies basic medical care to detained people in its care, from a COVID patient running a 105 degree fever, to someone with a fractured knee and hand,” said Oliver Ma, Legal Fellow at ACLU SoCal. “Braving threats of solitary confinement and physical violence, more than twenty detained people spoke up. It’s time to heed their call to shut these detention centers down, and put our community members over GEO’s profit margins.”
The complaint was filed by the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California on behalf of 21 complainants in ICE detention.
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The California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (CCIJ) is dedicated to building collective power to end immigrant detention. CCIJ utilizes coordination, advocacy, and legal services to fight for the liberation of immigrants in California. Learn more at www.ccijustice.org and follow CCIJ on Instagram and other social media at @ccijustice (@ccijustice_ on TikTok)
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