Immigration detention facilities have been notorious sites of human rights abuse for years, but conditions grew significantly worse under the Trump administration and during COVID-19. To preserve the United States’ reputation on human rights, the Biden administration must take immediate steps to address dangerous conditions in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities by banning the use of solitary confinement as a form of pandemic response, ending the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) contracts with private prison companies, and shutting down facilities with the most egregious track records of abuse.
Under President Trump, DHS instituted a series of policies dramatically increasing the number of people subject to detention by ICE, with more than 500,000 immigrants detained in 2019 alone. The Trump administration also opened over 40 new immigration detention facilities during his term — nearly all of them run by private companies that profit from detention. Despite having perverse financial incentives that harm the health and safety of detained people, these facilities were excluded from President Biden’s recent Executive Order banning new contracts with private prisons. That Order only applies to the Justice Department, not DHS.
In October 2019, California passed AB-32, which bans the use of all private detention facilities. This ban would have closed multiple ICE facilities in California last year as COVID began to spread. Trump administration officials at DHS appear to have colluded to circumvent federal procurement laws in violation of this ban, however. In November 2019, 21 members of the U.S. House and Senate sent a letter to the Trump administration raising concerns and requesting additional information about ICE’s recent contracts. DHS officials never responded.
Additionally, under President Trump’s management of the COVID-19 crisis, ICE largely avoided accountability for human rights abuses through strict limitations on access to detainees and ICE facilities. These facilities have subsequently become more dangerous, and the ACLU has documented countless reports of dangerous conditions, inadequate medical care, and a lack of access to basic sanitary supplies.
Detained people have frequently complained of excessive and abusive uses of force by ICE officials, as well as life-threatening denials of health care, and retaliatory measures against people who raise concerns. Detention officers have reportedly used tear gas against detainees protesting for more protection from COVID-19, while placing immigrants that become sick or are exposed to the virus in solitary confinement.
According to the United Nations, solitary confinement can amount to torture. It is particularly dangerous for vulnerable groups like individuals suffering from mental illness, and it is known to cause severe mental and physical health complications. Public health experts have repeatedly called on federal, state and local corrections officials not to use solitary confinement as a form of COVID response, noting that the practice makes the virus spread faster.
Under President Trump, ICE ignored these calls.
In May 2020, Choung Woong Ahn, a 74-year-old California man detained at the ICE Mesa Verde Detention Center — operated by private prison company GEO Group — committed suicide after being held in solitary confinement. Ahn had a documented history of mental illness and suicide attempts. He tested negative for COVID, but ICE officials placed him in isolation anyway.
Since 2017, at least 48 people have died in ICE custody or immediately after release. Twelve of these deaths were suicides inside detention facilities.
ICE’s brutal practices have not stopped the virus’s spread. As of January 20 there have been nearly 9,000 documented cases, including 45 positive cases among ICE employees. Due to lack of testing and transparency, actual cases are likely much higher.
At the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California, where nearly 20 percent of detained people tested positive for COVID, 118 women shared three showers while people reported waiting days to access soap. In May, the Trump administration ordered the GEO Group, which operates the Adelanto facility, not to conduct universal COVID testing.
President Biden should keep his campaign pledges of ending all federal contracts with private prison companies, and abolishing prolonged solitary confinement in ICE facilities. ICE has proven time and time again that it is incapable of ensuring the basic safety and human dignity for those in its custody, with or without the coronavirus. Instead, ICE should release detainees and use more humane alternatives to detention, including legal and community support for people as their civil immigration cases are adjudicated. The United States’ moral standing on human rights is at stake.
Eunice Cho is a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, focused on challenging unconstitutional conditions in U.S. immigration detention facilities and the expansion of immigration detention. Jackie Gonzalez is the Policy Director for Immigrant Defense Advocates. Prior to co-founding IDA, she served as policy director for the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (CCIJ).
