Louisiana ICE detention center rife with 'horrific' conditions
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Detainees and advocates have reported details of contaminated water and limited medical care, among other issues.
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Detainees wait to be processed at the Adelanto ICE processing center in Adelanto California on August 28, 2019. (AP)
Asylum seekers and advocates have reported that an ICE detention center in Louisiana has insufficient medical care and unclean accommodations and is infamous for the mistreatment of detainees, an exclusive report by NBC News revealed.
ICE has failed to address the issues in the year since immigration authorities vowed the facility would improve living conditions and reduce the number of people the facility holds.
Three individuals who were detained at the Winn Correctional Centre in rural Winn Parish, as well as lawyers who have visited, have detailed undrinkable water, constant threats of solitary confinement, and confined medical care.
Sofia Casini, the director of monitoring and community advocacy at Freedom for Immigrants, called the facility "extremely problematic", adding that there have been no improvements in "a very long time."
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Over 1,110 persons were kept at Winn, a main detention center run by a private business for male immigrants who entered the United States through its southern border, as of the week of June 12. According to figures from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the total is up 53% from September.
Despite ICE's pledges last year that it will lower the facility's "guaranteed minimum" number of beds and rebuild it to meet housing problems, campaigners say the number of inmates has increased and the facility has further deteriorated.
Ironically, during a 2022 inspection, the Winn facility secured the highest ranking on the inspection scale from the ICE Office of Detention Oversight.
Endemic to ICE
Mich González, the associate director of the Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project, says events at the facility are "endemic to the entire New Orleans ICE field office."
The Southern Poverty Law Center has represented dozens of people detained at the facility, which has been housing migrants since 2019, González said.
González detailed how some individuals with open wounds are not receiving treatment and others have been detained for up to a year.
According to an ICE spokesperson, the agency takes its job seriously of "promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in its custody very seriously — the agency provides comprehensive policy and strict oversight for the administrative custody of one of the most transient, diverse populations of any correctional or detention system in the world and holds firm to continuous review of the many factors relevant to the continued operation of each of its facilities.”
An anonymous Colombian inmate kept at the center for 6 months claimed he suffered from persistent strong stomach aches, diarrhea, and blood in his stool, symptoms he said were prevalent among long-term inmates.
“People stay sick, and they don’t care."
According to the man, inmates must queue at 6 am to arrange medical appointments, during which nurses decide whether they will see physicians. He claimed that he went to the nurse five times before getting an appointment with a doctor, but he was removed from the institution before the visit took place, noting that his symptoms subsided days after he was released.
The man described the threat of solitary confinement as a daily occurrence, expressing that a tiny cell with no sunlight is where they stayed if they were accused of causing trouble.
Another migrant detailed how the water was "yellow" and inmates constantly questioned the safety of the drinking water.
According to Dwayne Smith, another migrant, “The facility is not clean."
Winn's water is the same as Winnfield, which is controlled and monitored by the city, according to ICE. According to a water quality assessment for 2022, the Louisiana Health Department assigned the West Winn Water System a "D" on its "A" to "F" grading system for public drinking water systems.
In its report, the water system stated that it was "working diligently to bring West Winn Water System to a higher degree of value."
John Star, a Nigerian migrant, says the smell of the food served alone is enough "to make you choke."
ICE claims that the menu at Winn is certified by a dietician and residents have the option of buying additional food.
'Every part of my body was in pain'
As President Donald Trump escalated the detention of migrants and asylum seekers, Winn Correctional Centre and seven other Louisiana jails began detaining hundreds of immigration detainees in ICE custody in May 2019.
In February 2021, several immigrant advocacy organizations described “torture” at the facility, filing a complaint to the Department of Homeland Security.
In the complaint were reports from a migrant that ICE officials attempted to coerce him into giving his fingerprints for documents aiding his deportation. He detailed that when he refused, officers pressed on his neck and physically assaulted him for "more than two minutes."
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“Every part of my body was in pain; I had swollen hands, my wrists, and forehead. My neck had finger marks where I had been pressed down,” the man recalled.
The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties notified ICE in May 2021 that it would begin investigating complaints against the facility. Among the issues it stated it will look into was the death of a 56-year-old Marshallese citizen in September 2020.
The inquiry is still ongoing, according to the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
In December 2021, following an August 2021 investigation, the office recommended the "facility be closed or drawn down until several critical health and safety concerns could be addressed" and detailed that Winn was one of four Louisiana facilities that have had issues related to detention and medical and mental health care.
Following further abuse claims, ICE announced it would limit the use of Winn and wo other facilities, as well as "closely monitor conditions, including ongoing construction and remediation work at the facility, and take additional action as necessary."
However, inmates have reported that conditions have yet to improve.
Very lacking medical care
González expressed concern about serious medical neglect at Winn. An email exchange shared with NBC News details medical needs
The organization, which has been providing services to migrants at Winn, shared with NBC News an email exchange with ICE from late April drawing attention to the medical needs of inmates.
One inmate was suffering from H.pylori with severe stomach pain, vomiting blood, and headaches, among other symptoms, while another inmate was missing the “bottom half of his right leg and needs continued physical therapy, which is being denied at the facility. He’s not getting the care he needs and needs to be prioritized for release.”
Another inmate had “serious diabetes” and was in need of constant blood sugar testing and medical help.
Sarah Gillman, a lawyer and director of US litigation for Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, called the medical care very lacking after visiting last fall and meeting with over 40 inmates.
Gillman detailed "a myriad of problems, from lack of adequate necessary medical care to language access to lack of access to counsel to conditions that are completely unethical to punitive conditions of confinement.”
Smith, the Jamaican migrant, detailed his stay in solitary confinement, expressing that in 35 years, he had "never been treated like that before."
Gillman called the conditions "heartbreaking" and believes that the only solution is to shut down the facility.
