Care experts hired by the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration to internally audit dozens of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers and contracted local jails documented egregious conditions that are being made public for the first time.
The results of a three-year investigation by NPR on Wednesday revealed a culture of indifference and negligence among local law enforcement and privately hired contractors who were tasked with caring for tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who passed through facilities between 2017 and 2019.
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"Any of these findings alone can be considered an 'Immediate Jeopardy' according to the Center[s] for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and can lead to the closure of large health systems," one of the inspectors wrote.
The DHS's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties dispatched experts in medicine, mental healthcare, use of force, and environmental health to inspect two dozen facilities across 16 states and generated 1,600 pages worth of evaluations about what they learned inside. Some sheriff department jails that work with ICE to hold people were also examined and found to be in violation of basic care protocols.
NPR obtained the documents through a multiyear Freedom of Information Act request and lawsuit against DHS in which a federal judge ultimately ordered the government to produce the information.
A man at an ICE facility in Michigan was returned to the jail's open population space after having surgery despite surgical drains still in his body and an open wound.
Correctional officers in Pennsylvania strapped a mentally ill man in a restraint chair and had the only female officer use a pair of scissors to cut off his clothes during a strip search.
"This is a barbaric practice and clearly violates ... basic principles of humanity," the inspector wrote.
An Iranian man jailed in 2017 died at the ICE detention center in Aurora, Colorado, which is operated by the private company the GEO Group. Kamyar Samimi's daughter had contacted the facility to request to have Thanksgiving dinner with her father but did not get a response. Two weeks later, an ICE officer left a business card at the daughter's workplace and said to call.
"The officer picked up the phone and said, 'We don't know if anyone's been in touch with you, but we wanted to let you know that your father passed away over the weekend,'" she told NPR.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued GEO Group over Samimi's death and, in doing so, learned that the Aurora ICE Processing Center cut Samimi off opioid medication suddenly. Nurses claimed he was "faking" withdrawal symptoms, which included a seizure. Samimi died on Dec. 2, 2017, two weeks after he was arrested.
"The complete lack of medical leadership, supervision and care that this detainee was exposed to is simply astonishing and stands out as one of the most egregious failures to provide optimal care in my experience," one inspector wrote about the case. "The magnitude of failures to care for this detainee is only surpassed by the number of such failures. It truly appears that this system failed at every aspect of care possible."
Another immigrant at Aurora contracted HIV but was never informed by medical staff.
The DHS defended ICE's detention facilities and standards.
“ICE takes its commitment to promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in our custody very seriously," the DHS spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday. "ICE has closed or scaled back multiple immigration detention facilities since the start of this Administration. We are committed to ensuring, to the extent possible, that individuals remain in a facility that is close to family, loved ones, or attorneys of record. The agency continuously reviews and enhances civil detention operations to ensure noncitizens are treated humanely, protected from harm, provided appropriate medical and mental health care, and receive the rights and protections to which they are entitled.”
The GEO Group pushed back on the accusations against facilities where it was contracted to operate and staff.
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"As it relates to allegations regarding retaliation, GEO has a zero-tolerance policy with respect to staff misconduct. Regarding the adjudication of grievances for detainees in the custody of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, GEO follows all requirements and processes as outlined by the federal government’s Performance-Based National Detention Standards," GEO Group wrote in a statement. "This process is grounded in accessibility, confidentiality, fairness, objectivity, and integrity, without fear of retaliation; and it is implemented with full transparency for our client."
With more than 11 million illegal immigrants residing in the United States and approximately 6,000 ICE officers trained to arrest and deport, ICE has to prioritize who will be arrested and held in custody while a federal immigration judge determines his or her fate.