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Immigration detention facilities across California are plagued by severe and ongoing human rights abuse, according to a new report published today by the ACLU of Northern California.
The report, Resistance, Retaliation, Repression: Two Years in California Immigration Detention, analyzes hundreds of complaints filed by detained people through Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) grievance system. These grievances provide an extensive record of the inhumane conditions that immigrants inside the facilities have long fought to publicize, including hazardous living conditions, medical neglect, harassment, sleep deprivation, abuse of solitary confinement, and sexual assault.
“It is abundantly clear that the government cannot guarantee that its immigration detention facilities will meet non-negotiable human rights standards,” said Maricela Sanchez, investigator with the ACLU of Northern California and author of the report. “We are inspired by the courageous people who provided us with these records, and all the immigrants who continue to fight for basic human dignity in the face of ICE’s abuse.”
While under the purview of the federal government, all six of the immigration detention facilities in California are owned and operated by private corporations that have contracts with ICE.
As detailed in many grievances, the buildings are consistently unfit for human habitation. Walls are left rotting with black mold, the ventilation systems spew debris that interferes with people’s breathing, food is often rotten, and the water rancid.
The records also show that ICE allows people with chronic conditions to languish without medical attention for months or years. If an appointment is made, follow-up is sporadic. Facility staff regularly leave medication prescriptions unfilled, or otherwise disregard the recommended treatment.
Similarly, ICE allows potentially life-threatening COVID outbreaks to fester and spread. People who test positive are often left in rooms with others who are not yet infected. And if someone contracts the virus, ICE has refused to provide them with Paxlovid or other medications that relieve symptoms and minimize the danger of serious complications.
Immigrants who raise these concerns are told to file a grievance with ICE, which is supposed to review their complaint and determine whether it is founded. But a review of over 480 grievance records submitted since 2023 shows that seventy-one percent were either unfounded or rejected and nearly 21 percent were either closed, undecided, unknown, or had an unclear resolution. Based on the data, ICE claims that only 39 grievances out of the 485 were founded. In other words, only 8 percent of the total grievances were found in favor of detained people.
Disturbingly, the records show that not only are grievances wrongfully dismissed, but that the people who file them become targets. Over one hundred grievances shared with the ACLU were related to retaliation and staff misconduct. Facility staff taunt and physically intimidate people. They intentionally wake people up throughout the night and place outspoken leaders in prolonged periods of solitary confinement. The records also show numerous incidents of unnecessary pat-downs that are clearly intended to be sexually violating and degrading. When people object, they are told to file another grievance. It is likely that many do not out of fear of retaliation, resulting in abuses not captured on record.
The report comes at a time of disruption and tumult in ICE detention facilities. Immigrants detained at the Golden State Annex facility relaunched a labor and hunger strike strike, a follow-up to last year’s 35-day hunger strike. Six days after the labor strike began, ICE announced that it would terminate their longstanding access to direct free legal phone calls secured by a previous lawsuit by the ACLU. Without this program, it will be much more difficult for immigrants inside the facilities to access their right to counsel. The strikers have published a list of demands, which include ending the use of solitary confinement and other forms of retaliations and ensuring adequate medical care and food.
“I’ve spent 30 months in ICE immigration detention, and I’ve participated in multiple hunger strikes and labor strikes. I have firsthand experience and have witnessed an abundance of human rights violations at Golden State Annex,” said Gustavo Flores Coreas, one of the hunger strike’s leaders. “After coming off a hunger strike and losing 19 pounds last week, I was placed in a dorm where other people were infected with COVID-19. I’m now in medical isolation infected with COVID-19. Unfortunately, these human rights violations are not subsiding. Instead, they grow at a frighteningly alarming rate.”
The report’s findings and analysis of the grievances are also available in an interactive database. The database organizes the grievances into subcategories and documents the patterns of abuse that people in detention have raised to detention facility staff, as well as the staff responses to their grievances (or lack thereof). Copies of the grievances were either mailed to the ACLU directly by detained people, shared with the ACLU by other immigrant rights organizations, or obtained through our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
“We come together in unison, one voice, for one common cause: to terminate ICE’s detention at Mesa Verde and Golden State Annex facilities by bringing awareness to inhumane conditions and treatment,” said Juan Carlos Corona Avalos, another of the hunger strike’s leaders. “We ask the public to amplify our call for freedom.”
