Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state has formally asked federal inspectors to investigate health services at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities and whether the agency is complying with its own detention standards.
Murray’s letter to the Government Accountability Office on Thursday came months after 61-year-old detainee Charles Leo Daniel died at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, a Tacoma detention facility. Calls for a federal investigation are growing.
“ICE has a responsibility to maintain a safe and humane environment for aliens in its custody,” the letter reads.
An ICE spokesperson told the Standard that the agency is “firmly committed to the health, safety and well-being of all people in its custody” and that it has “limited detention resources to keep” detainees “safe.”
According to the ICE investigation, Daniel had numerous medical and mental health issues and often refused to take his medication. Report of deaths in custodyThis is mandated by the Legislature. Pierce County Coroner This was stated in a report published last month. Daniel died of natural causes related to high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.
The Northwest ICE Processing Center is operated by a Florida-based company called GEO Group, which has a contract with ICE. A Washington state agency is trying to inspect the Tacoma facility..
GEO has previously blocked state inspectors from entering its detention facilities, arguing in court that only federal authorities have the right to review detainee standards.
Researchers from the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights have documented a range of problematic practices at the facility, including medical neglect, unsanitary food and reports of sexual assault and abuse.
Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, director of the University of Washington center, said there has already been more than enough scrutiny of ICE’s practices in the detention centers, including an earlier GAO audit. What she and advocates want is more action. “We don’t need more investigations,” Snodgrass Godoy said. “What we need are some indicators of actual accountability.” [that] People have to stop dying.”
“It’s especially unfortunate to hear Senator Murray make such a statement because she holds the financial reins,” Snodgrass Godoy said. “She has extraordinary powers to hold ICE accountable.”
Snodgrass Godoy also pointed to recent reports by several civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union. I found that The facility has one of the highest death tolls of any immigrant detention center in the country.
Detainee hunger strike Protests have been frequent inside the facility: La Resistencia, a group calling for the detention center’s closure, has tracked six hunger strikes so far this year, including one that began three days ago involving 40 detainees.
The Northwest ICE Processing Center uses solitary confinement more than any other immigration detention facility in the country. UW researchers say:
According to researchers, Daniel’s March 7 death occurred while in solitary confinement, which he had been in for four years while in ICE custody. Daniel also Nine years in solitary confinement at a Washington prisonThe Seattle Times reported.
ICE and GEO have recorded that Daniel requested solitary confinement, and Snodgrass Godoy said that reflects how Daniel felt in the facility: “I can’t imagine that anyone would prefer solitary confinement, because it makes people feel very vulnerable.”
In response on June 17th March Letter The federal agency maintained in a report submitted to the Department of Homeland Security by several U.S. senators, including Murray and Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, that it “does not place detained aliens in solitary confinement or house them in custody.”
“However, ICE employs the unique practice of segregation to ensure the welfare of not only its employees but also aliens in its custody,” ICE Deputy Director Patrick J. Reckleitner wrote.
“Unlike the conditions typically associated with solitary confinement, foreign nationals detained in isolation facilities experience basic living conditions equivalent to those provided to the general population,” he added.
What ICE calls “isolation” meets the United Nations definition of solitary confinement. Snodgrass Godoy said it’s “simply not true” that people in solitary confinement experience the same basic living conditions as other detainees. They may be given the same food and have access to phone calls, but “the main difference is that they are isolated from other people and are confined to their cells for the majority of the day,” she said.
“They’re trying to obsess over details and distract us from reality,” she said. “It’s foolish to fall into that trap of ambiguity.”
Reckleitner said ICE employs two types of “segregation” methods: administrative segregation, used when a detainee is scheduled for release while awaiting responses on various procedural matters or to protect the security of detainees, staff or “facility security.”
The second is disciplinary action, which the agency says “serves solely as a measure to regulate the behavior of detained aliens and will impose a maximum sanction of 30 days per case, except in special circumstances.”
According to national data presented in Reckleitner’s letter, the average length of stay in special management units (what the agency calls “segregation”) across ICE facilities from 2017 to 2023 was 29 days.
The United Nations Solitary confinement for more than 15 consecutive days is a form of torture.
ICE detained a total of 20,675 people in special management units nationwide from 2017 to 2023. The agency has cited using these units as excess detention space during the COVID-19 pandemic as a contributing factor to the increase in detentions, but last year saw the highest number of detentions, with 3,800 cases.
Snodgrass Godoy of the University of Washington said ICE’s figures don’t line up with independent studies, including her own, which often find average lengths of stay to be much longer based on how the data is calculated.
The letter did not say how ICE calculated its numbers, but Snodgrass Godoy suspects the agency is averaging the figures across all types of ICE detention, including jail cells, rather than focusing on detention centers similar to the Northwest ICE Processing Center.
“I think they’re just mixing up a lot of categories,” Snodgrass Godoy said, “and it doesn’t actually give you any meaningful information.”
GEO said in an April statement that Daniel’s housing situation would be reviewed weekly and assessed by the ICE Health Services Unit “to ensure that any decision to accommodate Daniel’s request to remain in the Special Management Unit is safe from a mental health perspective.”
An ICE spokesperson said the agency’s “National Detention Standards and other ICE policies require facilities to provide comprehensive medical and mental health care to aliens from the moment they arrive at a facility and for the duration of their detention in ICE custody.”
GEO did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
