Immigration advocates say prison expansion will only compound problems

Bryan Gibel | For The New Mexican

3/17/2008 - 3/13/08

A privately operated prison designed for detained immigrants will be ready to open three months from now in a remote location in Otero County.

Last May, the county issued more than $62 million in bonds to pay for the 1,086-bed processing center. The facility will be able to admit up to 250 immigrants per day and generate more than $25 million in annual revenue for the county when it reaches full capacity.

Because of more aggressive enforcement actions, demand for facilities like this to house people accused of running afoul of U.S. immigration laws is growing. The U.S. government detained 283,000 people last year, according to Detention Watch Network, a national coalition of organizations advocating for humane reform of immigration laws, while the number of beds available for them increased by 6,000.

Even before construction began in Chaparral, N.M., Immigration and Customs Enforcement indicated an interest in expanding the facility to 2,000 beds, according to documents prepared for Otero County.

As the numbers of people detained has grown, so have complaints about their treatment in privately operated facilities. ICE pulled all 600 of its detainees from the Regional Correction Center in Albuquerque last year, citing serious doubts about the ability of Cornell Companies to provide a "safe and humane environment."

The new Otero County Processing Center will be operated by Management and Training Corp., a Utah-based company that manages more detainee beds for ICE than any other private contractor. Management and Training ran the Santa Fe County jail from 2001 to 2005. During that time, a federal Department of Justice audit found deficiencies, and the family of a man beaten to death at the jail sued both the county and the company.

The company also operates a facility for immigrant detainees in Raymondville, Texas, along the Mexican border, which earned the nickname "Tent City" because many of the beds were in windowless pods. Last year, the Willacy County Commission approved an expansion of the center.

Management and Training currently manages the Otero County Prison Facility next door to the new processing center in Chaparral. Immigrant-rights advocates say they repeatedly hear complaints about practices there.

ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa declined to comment on when the new facility will open. She said the deal with the county hasn't been finalized.

ICE will pay $78 a day to house detainees awaiting deportation or transfer in Otero II. It will have courtrooms and administrative offices as well as a fleet of at least 15 buses and vans.

Conditions for detainees in Chaparral

Detainees who come to El Paso for immigration court hearings often complain of poor conditions in the Chaparral facility, which also holds federal and local criminal inmates, said Ilian Olguín, executive director of Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services, a Catholic ministry in El Paso that provides free legal services to immigrant detainees.

"We hear repeatedly from people that beg us if there's anything we can do so that they can stay here and not have to go back to the Otero facility," Olguín said. "We've gotten reports of lack of access to medical care. There's virtually (no) library. They are very, very secluded out there."

DMRS is the only organization with regular access to the Otero prison, and that is limited, according to Olguín. It is difficult to obtain first-person stories from most immigrants because when they leave the facility, they are deported.

However, some detainees have complained of being held in solitary confinement in Chaparral, even though many are detained without criminal charges, said Edgar Maldonado, a DMRS representative who visits the prison once a week to give a presentation on the deportation process.

"We'll hear that detainees are put in the "shu" because they didn't do this or that. It's kind of like solitary," he said. "They're put in there if they don't behave, cause problems or don't follow the rules. It varies. Sometimes they'll be in a week."

Olguín also said her organization has seen problems gaining access to health care, and had to contact ICE directly to get at least one issue resolved.

"We had to intervene in the particular case of one man," she said. "His family was frantic, because when he'd been detained, he'd been detained without his medication, which he needed to have, and his health was really deteriorating. We had to complain to the ICE officials here in El Paso to try to finally get that man his medication."

Maldonado said the incident happened in the summer of 2007. The man was probably a diabetic and was having trouble walking, he said.

In the Albuquerque Correction Center case, Chief U.S. District Judge Martha Vázquez sent a letter last year to the operator saying she was worried about medical care, physical conditions and nutrition at the lockup. She recounted stories inmates told her during visits in the summer of 2007 to the jail about missing property, allegations of sexual misconduct and of inmates who were punished for speaking out. Federal detainees were later removed and, according to Zamarripa, will not be returned there.

Federal authorities are also investigating the death of a Korean woman who died at an Albuquerque hospital while in the center's custody in 2006. The woman's repeated requests for medical attention were ignored, according to lawyers familiar with the case.

It is not clear where the detainees went after ICE pulled them out last July. But Otero County bond documents suggest the government was hoping they could be transported to the new detention center in Chaparral. The documents say ICE requested the new facility be ready by Aug. 1, 2007.

Zamarripa declined to comment on any of the specific allegations of mistreatment "because of the detainees' privacy rights." But she said ICE regularly monitors complaints from its detainees in Otero County to make sure ICE detention standards are met and, "We haven't encountered any complaints of the nature that have been described." A Management and Training spokesman referred all questions to ICE.

Limited access to legal representation

In addition to complaints about harsh conditions, detainees in Chaparral hardly ever have legal representation because there are no free legal services in New Mexico for immigrants in deportation proceedings, according to Maldonado.

That means lawyers have to travel in from El Paso to meet with detainees in Otero County, he said.

"If you talk to most attorneys, they don't really want to go out there," he said. "It's not very far, but when you factor in the travel time and the time it takes them to bring the detainee over to you, it adds up. That makes it more difficult for people who are detained out there to get representation."

DMRS has repeatedly raised issues with ICE about detainees' inability to make phone calls to nonprofit organizations for legal advice, Olguín said.

"One of the prison standards requires that detainees be able to make free calls to the nearest nonprofit organization that can potentially provide assistance," she said. "With Otero, detainees needed to give the prison staff the numbers they want to call so they can be placed on a special permission list. The problem is, if you're an immigration detainee, you don't know our number, so you can't give it to the detention facility staff."

The situation has improved since the prison posted contact information for nonprofit legal services for immigrants, but detainees still complain of difficulty getting a working line and having to pay for their phone calls with calling cards, Olguín said.

Maldonado said providing legal advice and responding to the grievances of immigrant detainees at the Otero County prison is already an uphill battle, and the problem will get worse when the new expansion opens.

"I hear complaints, and the reality is that we don't really have the resources to get involved and to double check that things have been resolved," he said. "The new facility is almost ready to be opened up. I'm not sure what we're going to do when that happens, because we're already swamped."

BY THE NUMBERS

283,000: Number of people detained on immigration charges in FY 2007

30,000: Number of beds available for detainees

400: Number of facilities to house detainees

1,086: Capacity of Otero II

$25 million: Anticipated yearly revenue to the county from Otero II