Report details migrants’ protests

Officers fired pepper spray at detainees

Immigrants detained at the La Palma Correctional Center in Eloy in April 2020 held two peaceful protests inside a housing unit, complaining that staff was not providing adequate protective equipment to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

To quell the demonstrations at the for-profit immigration detention facility, correctional officers responded by firing pepper balls, pepper spray and other chemical agents at the detainees, according to a scathing new report by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, a government watchdog group that provides oversight of immigration detention centers.

A photo of video surveillance footage taken during the second protest on April 13, 2020, included in the draft OIG report, shows about 50 detainees, some wearing face masks, scattered in a housing area sitting on the floor or outside the doors of their cells with their legs and arms crossed and their heads bowed.

A second photo shows a line of about 12 officers in helmets and carrying shields firing pepper balls and pepper spray directly at a group of detainees sprawled face down on the floor just a few feet away. The detainees can be seen trying to protect their faces.

Complaints by detainees fearful of catching the new coronavirus while locked up in close quarters at the La Palma facility were reported by The Arizona Republic in May 2020.

But the OIG report is the first time it

has been revealed that correctional officers fired pepper balls and pepper spray at detainees in response to peaceful protests. The use of force was uncovered when OIG inspectors conducted an unannounced remote inspection of the La Palma Correctional Center from August to November and reviewed surveillance video footage.

A total of 810 immigrants have tested positive for COVID-19 while detained at the La Palma facility, the highest number of cases among 125 detention facilities across the country that have reported positive COVID-19 cases, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data. Of the 810 cases, 77 are active cases, according to the data.

OIG inspectors confirmed correctional officers at the La Palma facility used chemical agents to end the protests after 182 detainees signed a letter last year detailing the incident, according to the report. Detainees told OIG inspectors they were punished with lengthy stays in segregation for taking part in the protests. One detainee also told inspectors he suffered injuries from pepper balls fired by facility staff, but felt too intimidated to file a complaint.

La Palma staff told OIG inspectors the officers were following policy when they used pepper balls and pepper spray to quell civil disobedience and ICE’s own performance standards do not specify what methods are permitted to end protests. “During our unannounced inspection of LPCC, we identified violations of ICE detention standards that threatened the health, safety, and rights of detainees,” the OIG report said.

“However, detainee reports and grievances allege an environment of mistreatment and verbal abuse, including in response to detainee peaceful protests of the facility’s handling of the pandemic,” the report added.

The report found that detainees filed 1,283 grievances from February through August of last year, with 487 grievances complaining about mistreatment by La Palma staff, including being called racial slurs.

Detainees complained of not being given adequate face masks. Inspectors repeatedly observed on surveillance video footage detainees gathering in groups of three to five and not wearing masks, which may have contributed to the widespread COVID-19 outbreak at the facility, the report said.

The report found that La medical unit was critically

Palma’s understaffed, resulting in delays in responding to complaints of symptoms of COVID-19, adding to the risk of spreading the virus at the facility.

The OIG report is one of two recently released reports that paint a critical picture of conditions inside the La Palma Correctional Center, which is owned and operated by Nashville, Tennesseebased CoreCivic, a for-profit, private prison company, under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Detainee claims his rape report was ignored

The second report based on a compliance inspection conducted in January by ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight found nine deficiencies. The most serious involved a detainee who told inspectors he had been raped inside his cell in December 2020 by another detainee. The detainee said he had reported the rape to a correctional officer and to a rape prevention hotline but the facility took no action, the ODO report said. The detainee told inspectors he felt depressed, suicidal and had trouble sleeping because of the assault.

The ODO report, made public in March, said inspectors interviewed a transgender female detainee who said she had been harassed by a correctional officer and verbally attacked by another detainee.

The report said detainees in one housing unit told ODO inspectors that they had been served only sandwiches three times a day for three months from September to November as punishment. The report does not say what the detainees thought they were being punished for.

ICE officials and CoreCivic spokespeople disputed many of the complaints cited in the reports, including the use of pepper balls and pepper spray against peaceful protesters and the detainee’s claim that La Palma staff ignored his rape report.

In a memo responding to the OIG report, ICE’s chief financial officer, Stephen Roncone, said the agency “has significant concerns about the accuracy of the findings” in the report.

Several findings rely on “uncorroborated allegations” by detainees, and inspectors did not interview ICE officials or CoreCivic representatives regarding the use of force incidents, Roncone said in the memo attached to the report.

“As discussed with the auditors during several meetings, reports documenting these incidents contradict detainee allegations contained in the report,” Roncone wrote.

Roncone noted that the OIG report did not find that the use of force violated performance-based national standards adopted by the agency in 2011.

“To the contrary, OIG acknowledged that the 2011 (Performance-Based National Detention Standards) do not specify which methods are permitted to quell civil disobedience,” Roncone wrote.

Roncone criticized the OIG report’s finding that La Palma’s medical unit was critically understaffed with only 51 of 72 positions filled. Roncone said the report failed to note that while the facility was designed to hold 2,340 detainees, the average detainee population during the audit was 1,542, or 65% of the population called for in the staffing plan.

Without that context, “a reader may assume that violations of the standards had occurred, when in fact, none occurred,” Roncone wrote.

Roncone defended the facility’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that the OIG report found that a 14day quarantine period and other practices put in place resulted in reduced detainee-to-detainee exposure.

Amanda Gilchrist, CoreCivic’s director of public affairs, said La Palma staff and management “take seriously our obligation to follow ICE’s Performance Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS), as well as those of the independent American Correctional Association.”

Gilchrist said that grievances are “properly investigated” and staff who mistreat or abuse detainees are held accountable. “CoreCivic does not tolerate mistreatment or abuse of any kind and agree that profane, abusive or threatening language is never acceptable behavior,” Gilchrist said in a written statement.

Gilchrist also disputed claims by detainees that they were not given adequate masks. All detainees originally were issued two paper surgical face masks in early April 2020, and then later given two cloth face masks that could be laundered during weekly laundry exchanges. Detainees are required to wear masks outside their assigned living areas. They are not disciplined for not following mask and social distancing guidelines, “but the practices are strongly encouraged,” she said.

In a separate statement, Ryan Gustin, CoreCivic’s manager of public affairs, also disputed the sexual assault claim by a detainee at La Palma described in the Office of Detention Oversight report. CoreCivic immediately launched an investigation after hearing about the claim and reported the claim to police, Gustin said. However, La Palma’s internal investigator could not find any records to substantiate the detainee’s claim that he reported the sexual assault in December to a member of CoreCivic’s staff or to a rape prevention hotline, Gustin said.

La Palma’s investigator was unable to substantiate the claim by a transgender female detainee that she had been harassed by a correctional officer, Gustin said. CoreCivic is committed to “creating a safe environment for the individuals ICE entrusts to our care, and we follow all federal guidelines on the appropriate accommodation of transgender detainees,” he said.

Gustin acknowledged that La Palma implemented a limited menu in response to claims by detainees that they were served sandwiches three times a day for three months as punishment. But Gustin said the limited menu was implemented due to the coronavirus pandemic, not as punishment, and a registered dietitian certified each menu as “nutritionally adequate.”

Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, said the concerns raised in the two government watchdog reports show that ICE and CoreCivic staff are unable to protect the health and safety of detainees at the La Palma detention center.

The reports “should raise crucial concern for everybody. This is a facility that is unable to protect people in its custody. And we can see that with the confirmed investigations of the Office of Inspector General,” Cho said.

The 3,060-bed La Palma Correctional Center is a former prison originally used to house inmates from California. It was converted into an immigration detention center under the Trump administration as part of an expansion of detention centers run by for-profit companies under contracts with ICE, according to an ACLU report.

The 2019 ACLU report conducted before the pandemic documented claims by detainees of lack of hygiene supplies, unsanitary conditions and difficulty getting medical care, Cho said.

Cho said the Biden administration should consider ending the government’s contract with CoreCivic in light of the concerns raised about conditions at La Palma in the two government watchdog reports. “As the Biden administration is looing more closely at its use of detention facilities, it should look very carefully at what is happening at La Palma and whether or not contracts that were signed under the Trump administration at this particular facility should be continued,” she said.