(Bloomberg) -- Migrants held inside nine detention centers in Louisiana are often subjected to human rights abuses that meet the legal definition of torture, according to a report released Monday by a coalition of legal and human rights organizations.
The report, compiled by more than a dozen nonprofit groups, is based on more than 6,000 interviews since 2022 with detainees inside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. It alleges that the detention centers, which are primarily operated by two private contractors under ICE’s supervision, routinely deprive detainees of urgent medical care, legal resources and basic human necessities.
“We see these jails almost as ‘black sites’ in the national immigration system,” said Sarah Decker, one of the report’s lead authors and an attorney with the advocacy group Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.
Of the nine detention facilities examined in the report, five opened in 2019 and were part of an expansion of the nation’s immigrant detention system centered in southern states, including Louisiana. More than 6,000 ICE detainees are held in Louisiana detention centers – more than any state except Texas, which has about 11,600. Many of the facilities examined are former jails and prisons that were emptied after legal reforms swept the region in the 2010s.
“This is the perfect place for ICE to set up a national detention and deportation hub shielded from public scrutiny,” Decker said. “They’ve picked an area of the country that is extremely remote and isolated, far from any urban centers, and they’re transferring people from all over the country to these jails, including from the US-Mexico border.”
The report alleges that some of the detainees were transported to the detention centers from the border shackled in five-point restraints for as many as 26 hours, unable to use the restroom or eat and drink, and were left with deep cuts on their wrists and legs. Detainees reported rat infestations, black mold, leaking ceilings and food clearly marked with expiration dates long passed and infested with worms and larvae.
Female detainees said they had been denied menstrual products, and those in solitary confinement reported going without clean laundry and bedding for as long as three months. Numerous detainees told of being denied medical care, resulting in serious complications. ICE detainees are not guaranteed legal representation, and the report alleges that the detention centers routinely deny them access to legal libraries and translation services.
The nine detention centers are overseen by ICE’s New Orleans Field Office. In a statement, the agency said it is committed to the health and welfare of migrants in its custody. “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,” it said.
The agency also said it “continues to review immigration detention centers nationally, monitoring the quality of life and treatment of individuals among other factors relevant to the continued operation of each facility.”
A spokesperson for GEO Group, which holds the contracts to operate four of the centers referenced in the report, said the organizations that authored the study are politically motivated. “GEO categorically denies such allegations and stands by our provision of contract compliant support services in accordance with all established federal standards,” according to the spokesperson.
Decker and the other authors of the report say that the findings of the official inspections are shielded from public view, and the site visits are conducted by people employed by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. Decker said the goal of the report is to spur inspections from an independent agency, such as the US Government Accountability Office, that would include comprehensive surveys of detainees.
“Our expectation is the result of that would indicate exactly what the findings of our report indicate — that the existence of these facilities in Louisiana cannot be maintained,” Decker said. “This entire network of jails must be shut down.”
(Updates with ICE response in eighth paragraph.)
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