Report finds more than 800 complaints of hate-related abuse in immigration detention

Immigrants prepare to be unshackled at the Adelanto Detention Facility.

July 16, 2018 5 AM PT

As the Trump administration pushes for more immigration detention space, detainees and their advocates say that they face discrimination while in custody.

A report published in late June by Freedom for Immigrants, a California-based nonprofit that visits people held in immigration detention, found more than 800 hate-related incidents in immigration detention since President Donald Trump took office. The report describes hate incidents related to race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.

“Through these anecdotes, we’re putting this system’s racism and hate on display so the public can witness the vile and unacceptable mistreatment of immigrants at the hands of the government,” said Liz Martinez, director of advocacy for Freedom for Immigrants.

The report did not place all of the blame for such incidents in detention on Trump.

“While Freedom for Immigrants has witnessed a rise in abuse motivated by hate and bias in U.S. immigration detention under the Trump administration, the Obama administration also perpetuated abuse motivated by hate and bias.”

Freedom for Immigrants began during the Obama administration but the new report is the first documenting hate incidents nationwide in detention that the organization has released.

Detainees across the country told Freedom for Immigrants about guards calling them racist names like “monkey,” “baboon” or “King Kong.”

Several of the incidents occurred at Southern California facilities. Haitians held at Adelanto Detention Facility, operated by private prison company GEO Group in San Bernardino County, said guards called them called “f*****g blacks” and “Haitian trash.”

GEO Group responded critically to the report’s claims.

“We reject these baseless and outrageous allegations in the strongest terms,” the GEO Group said. “We have a zero tolerance policy for any and all forms of discrimination. Our 23,000 GEO employees around the world are proud of our record in managing facilities with high-quality services in safe, secure, and humane environments. Members of our team strive to treat all of those entrusted to our care with compassion, dignity, and respect.”

A Muslim man who was held at Adelanto for more than a year was denied access to halal and kosher meals, the report says, and wasn’t allowed to attend religious service.

Another man at Adelanto said he was targeted because of his sexual orientation and gender identity, and an officer told him that “he should be used to this kind of prejudice” because of his identity.

A detainee at Otay Mesa Detention Center, run by private prison company CoreCivic in San Diego, said that after a medical staff member told the detainee that “Illegals only come to the U.S. to steal jobs from white people,” the medical staff denied the person pain medication and an x-ray.

CoreCivic said that the federal government closely monitors its operations and that the government, not CoreCivic, employs medical staff on site.

“CoreCivic cares deeply about every person in our care, and we work hard to ensure those in our facility are treated respectfully and humanely,” said Amanda Gilchrist, spokeswoman for CoreCivic. “We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind, and cultural and ethnic sensitivity education is part of every employee’s training.”

A transgender detainee at Otay Mesa said CoreCivic staff harassed and mocked her and then destroyed her asylum paperwork before putting her in solitary confinement.

Gilchrist said CoreCivic’s facilities adhere to standards set by the federal government, including guidelines for transgender detainees.

When asked about the report, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack said that the agency has zero tolerance for abuse or assault against people in its custody.

“Every allegation of misconduct is taken seriously,” Mack said. “ICE is committed to ensuring that those in our custody reside in safe, secure, and humane environments and under appropriate conditions of confinement.

“ICE has religious services coordinators in each of our facilities, and we actively monitor detainee disability accommodations consistent with federal law and agency policy. Additionally, all ICE senior field officers take LGBTI sensitivity training.”

Detainees at Otay Mesa Detention Center also recently reached out to the San Diego Union-Tribune directly with a letter about what they perceived as discrimination.

The letter, sent from a group identifying as “the voices of African descent at Otay Mesa Detention facility,” alleges that their cases are treated differently from those of other backgrounds.

The letter cites an example at the beginning of April when an officer told a detainee that he had to be silent during count. The detainee responded that he had the right to speak based on the rules in the handbook, the letter says.

According to the letter, the officer responded, “Once you enter this facility, you have no rights.”

When detainees asked the officer to repeat what he said, he said it even louder, the letter says.

“Most of us came through the jungle to seek asylum,” the letter says. “Now we are in a concrete jungle battling a system.”

Robert Johnson, 41, said he witnessed that incident and others while he was held at Otay Mesa Detention Center earlier this year and helped write the letter.

“I don’t know what posessed him to say that and then repeat it,” Johnson said, recalling the incident described in the letter. “Some of them, you can tell they look at the people like filth.”

Johnson, originally from Jamaica, grew up in the U.S. as an unauthorized immigrant. He did not qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program because he came to the U.S. earlier than the cutoff date.

When his wife tried to sponsor a green card for him, he ended up back in Jamaica earlier this year because his medical screening showed traces of marijuana in his system.

Unable to bear being separated from his wife and three sons, 10-year-old twins and a 6 year old, and worried about what would happen to the barbershop he owned in New York, he tried to cross back illegally from Tijuana and got caught.

In detention, he met asylum seekers from several African countries — Mali, Cameroon, Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan and Senegal.

Most of the discrimination he witnessed was verbal, Johnson said, though he did also see some signs of favoritism and special treatment for people of particular backgrounds from certain officials.

If detainees weren’t fluent in English, they didn’t understand when detention officials would say discriminatory comments to them, but Johnson would hear and try to speak up for them, said Johnson, now back in Jamaica.

“What can they do? They don’t want to cause problems,” Johnson said of the asylum seekers. “They just want to win their cases and get out. Nobody is going to complain about any discrimination.”

Many of the asylum seekers from African countries felt like they were held in detention longer than people from other parts of the world, he said. They saw Eastern Europeans arrive and get bond within a couple of months while they waited between six months and a year for court hearings.

“I feel like sometimes they hold certain people in there for a long time,” Johnson said.

ICE spokeswoman Mack said, “ICE makes custody determinations on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with U.S. law and Department of Homeland Security policy, considering the merits and factors of each case while adhering to current agency priorities, guidelines and legal mandates.”

The Freedom for Immigrants report argues that the language used by Trump to describe people from other countries has emboldened people to mistreat immigrants, causing a rise in hate-related incidents across the country.

“History has taught us about how governments around the world have used language as a tool of dehumanization in order to try to manipulate societies into believing that certain groups of people are inferior and deserving of abuse,” the report says.

The letter from detainees at Otay Mesa similarly blames Trump for some of the discrimination they’ve felt.

“We understand that your president stated that he does not want anyone from any s******e countries,” the letter says. “We now understand our countries may be viewed as such.”

The report pushes for a moratorium on immigration detention expansion and construction and for funds to be diverted from ICE and Customs and Border Protection to community-based alternatives to detention.

“The function of ICE detention is to indefinitely cage people in intolerable conditions and isolate them from their loved ones so that they lose hope,” said Rebecca Merton, national visitation coordinator for Freedom for Immigrants.

“Many people are defending themselves against deportation to countries where they fear torture or death on account of persecution due to ethnicity, sexual orientation, or other identity,” she said. “By unleashing state-sanctioned hate and violence on immigrants in detention, ICE is attempting to force people to choose between two places where they are targeted for abuse.”

The report also calls for more monitoring and oversight of detention conditions and harsher consequences for immigration facility officials who have substantiated discrimination claims made against them.

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