"Nothing Is Changing": ICE Sends Detainees to Irwin Prison Despite Pledges
to Close It
By John Washington and José Olivares, The Intercept
03 June 21
Irwin, an ICE prison plagued by abuse allegations, is at the center of the
Biden administrations promises on detention reform.
Despite an announcement that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements
Irwin County Detention Center could be closed, people continue to be
transferred into the detention facility, according to multiple sources
interviewed by The Intercept. Last week, at least 34 people were transferred
into Irwin from other detention centers, according to advocates on the
ground and people detained in the facility, adding to the logistical
difficulty of closing it and possibly delaying its shuttering.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently
announced that the agency would be severing its contract with the private
prison company that runs Irwin, LaSalle Corrections. The facility in Ocilla,
Georgia, had become the subject of controversy and questions about rights
abuses after allegations surfaced that detained women underwent unnecessary
gynecological procedures allegations that the orders to shut the facility
obliquely mentioned.
This facility, which has a long and well-documented history of inflicting
horrific abuse and neglect on people held there, should be immediately
closed once and for all, said Diego Sánchez, a Georgia-based direct
services attorney with Southern Poverty Law Centers Southeast Immigrant
Freedom Initiative. It is beyond disappointing that nearly two weeks since
the directive to close Irwin as soon as possible, ICE continues to confine
immigrants at Irwin and other horrific facilities across the country. Enough
is enough.
Whistleblower Dawn Wooten, a former nurse at Irwin, detailed a host of
medical abuses to The Intercept last fall, bringing international scrutiny
and prompting congressional investigations into the facility.
One detainee currently housed at Irwin told The Intercept that its been
business as usual in the facility since Mayorkass announcement of the
closure. Benjamin Edetanlen, 43, who has been detained at the facility for
almost 16 months and faces imminent deportation to England, confirmed that
other people have been transferred into Irwin during the past week but could
not specify the number. Nothing has changed, nothing is changing,
Edetanlen said, describing the prevailing mood in Irwin.
Edetanlen also relayed an account given to him by two guards at the prison
of an all-staff meeting called by David Paulk, the detention centers
warden. He said that guards have been claiming that the warden told them
that the newspapers are lying and that staff have no need to worry about
Irwin closing.
According to a source familiar with day-to-day operations at Irwin, who
requested anonymity for fear of professional reprisals, guards and other
staff members are saying that the closure of Irwin was a rumor and that
operations would continue as usual. (ICE, Paulk, and LaSalle did not respond
to repeated requests for comment about the timing of Irwins closure nor the
continued arrival of immigration detainees there.)
Whether ICE seriously pursues ending its contract with LaSalle to house
immigration detainees at Irwin raises thorny questions about the Biden
administrations promises to rein in abuses in immigration enforcement and,
more broadly, in private-run federal detention.
They dont have the political will, said Silky Shah, executive director of
Detention Watch Network, an advocacy group, expressing skepticism about the
Biden administrations sluggishness to act on the pledges to close Irwin and
roll back private detention. Immigrants may still be detained there. They
just want to perform. ICE is saying they want to back out, but what does
that actually look like? Its sort of a flimsy thing.
U.S. Marshals Contract
Following Mayorkass announcement, ICE could have ended its operations at
Irwin by Friday, June 18, according to the contract and a legal analysis of
it performed by an advocacy group. The memo, in which Mayorkas announced the
shuttering, originally posted by CBS News, calls on acting ICE Director Tae
Johnson to prepare to discontinue use of Irwin by, among other things,
facilitating the movement to a different facility or facilities those
detained individuals whose continued detention is needed to achieve our
national security, public safety, and border security mission.
ICEs agreement with Irwin is based on a rider in a contract between
LaSalle, the private prison firm, and the U.S. Marshals Service, a law
enforcement agency operating under the Department of Justice. The Marshals
Service, which is in charge of holding federal pretrial detainees, does not
own any facilities. Instead, the agency holds people in a network of around
1,200 county jails, local facilities, and private prisons that have
contracts with the Marshals Service. According to the contract, LaSalle is
currently earning $71.29 per person per day for detaining migrants solely
referred to as prisoners in the contract for the government.
It is not uncommon for ICE to detain people through rider clauses in
Marshals Service contracts. According to a January report from the U.S.
Government Accountability Office, in 2019 ICE was detaining people in 185
facilities throughout the country. Of those, 62 of the facilities were
through riders in Marshals Service contracts. In total, the report found
that 17 percent of the average daily ICE population is detained in
facilities through riders in Marshals Service contracts.
The Intercept reviewed the Irwin contract between LaSalle and the Marshals
Service, as well as a legal analysis of the contract commissioned by the
#DetentionKills program at Al Otro Lado, an immigrant advocacy group. The
contract has no specified end date for the intergovernmental service
agreement, but the Marshals could issue notice and terminate the contract
within 30 days. The advocates legal analysis concluded that there was no
potential liability for the US Marshals Service to terminate and end the
agreement under this provision.
If ICE follows through on ending its contract with Irwin, detention
operations may continue with pretrial federal detainees still being locked
up in the facility under the custody of the Marshals Service, according to
that agencys contract with LaSalle. There are currently 124 people under
the Marshals custody detained at Irwin, according to the agency.
Generally speaking, the U.S. Marshals Service makes housing decisions based
upon various factors such as security, availability of bed space in a
particular facility, court appearances and other factors, a spokesperson
for the Marshals Service said. The U.S. Marshals Service has no
responsibility for, or involvement in, the custody of ICE detainees. While
the U.S. Marshals Service allows ICE as an authorized agency on some of our
intergovernmental agreements for detention services with state and local
jail facilities, ICE can operate under those agreements and/or separate
agreements, of which we have no involvement.
An arrangement continuing federal detention at Irwin would seem to run afoul
of an executive order signed by President Joe Biden on January 26. (Bidens
order did not address private immigration detention companies.) In
Youngstown, Ohio, the Marshals recently renegotiated a contract with
for-profit prison company CoreCivic to hold federal detainees, seemingly in
direct contravention to Bidens order.
This calls into question what the EO executive order actually stands
for, said Shah, the Detention Watch Network official. This flies in the
face of what Biden has claimed.
Agony at Irwin
Bidens federal government budget for the fiscal year 2022 increased funds
for ICE oversight but maintained nearly identical levels of funding for
immigration detention as the Trump administration. Bidens budget funds
32,500 detention beds; last years budget, under Trump, funded 34,000 beds.
For advocates working on immigrants behalf, the continued massive capacity,
coupled with the news that Irwin was still accepting detainees, raised
alarms.
Given what we have learned about the systematic violence against
immigrants bodies at Irwin, we need ICE to come clean about what is
happening at ICE prisons nationwide, said Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and
advocacy director for Project South, an advocacy group based in Georgia.
Immigrants cannot have their bodily integrity at the mercy of ICE and the
private prisons corporations the agency contracts with.
Advocates and a detainee also spoke of continued troubling reports from
inside Irwin with regard to medical issues, particularly the coronavirus
pandemic. The alleged medical abuse is what brought Irwin under scrutiny in
the first place, after The Intercept first wrote about Wooten, the
whistleblower who detailed abuse and neglect. Wooten initially spoke out to
bring attention to the poor implementation of protocols related to the
pandemic.
Edetanlen, the detainee, said that Covid-19 protocols are still being
flouted, with guards packing people detained there into rooms where it is
impossible to socially distance, as well as staff ignoring sick call
requests, even from people with Covid-19 symptoms. Edetanlen also told The
Intercept that the medical ward remains filthy, with roaches, other insects,
and mold. Its classic Irwin, Edetanlen said, with the facility flouting
whatever is coming down from the top.
After The Intercept published Wootens allegations about medical misconduct,
primarily related to the coronavirus pandemic, widespread national attention
turned to detained women at Irwin who described being subjected to
unnecessary gynecological procedures, including hysterectomies, without
their informed consent. So far, 57 women have spoken out about the
gynecological procedures they were subjected to. Fourteen women have filed a
class-action lawsuit against ICE, LaSalle, and the doctor responsible for
the procedures. (The Marshals Service did not respond when asked whether
women in their custody would still be detained in Irwin.)
Viridiana Fuentes, a community organizer who has protected immigration
status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and who
visits people detained at Irwin, told The Intercept: The federal government
owes a debt it has not begun to pay to victims of ICE. Fuentes added that
many of the victims in Irwin risked everything to expose abuse and all of
whom should be free.