City Council hears testimony from detainees in New York ICE facilities
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An immigration detainee sits in a room to use a telephone inside the Winn Correctional Center, in Winnfield, La., in this Sept. 26, 2019 file photo. New York State lawmakers are considering a bill that would prevent jails throughout the state from contracting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. AP file photo by Gerald Herbert
By Jacob Kaye
A hunger strike, racist and retaliatory treatment from guards and medical neglect – those were the conditions outlined during a New York City Council hearing Monday by current and former detainees in New York State prisons held on immigration charges.
The City Council’s Committee on Immigration’s hearing – its first of the year – featured testimony from a number of impacted immigrants and nonprofit organizations working to pass the Dignity Not Detention Act.
The bill is currently in committee in the State Legislature and supported by a number of Queens lawmakers. The council hearing Monday was centered around plans to pass a resolution, urging state lawmakers to pass and the governor to sign the bill into law.
The Dignity Not Detention Act would prohibit state entities from entering into paid contracts with the federal government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement and would require any existing contracts to be terminated.
“This bill is very, very much needed,” said Tania Mattos, the director of advocacy and policy at the Envision Freedom Fund, one of several organizations rallying to get the bill passed. “It's just necessary to stop the human suffering that these guards and ICE officers conduct everyday on people that are detained on immigration purposes, which is a civil matter.”
A significant number of the testimonies given Monday came from current and formerly detained immigrants in New York State prisons and jails where ICE operates. A bulk of the testimony came from people held in the Orange County Correctional Facility in Goshen, New York.
The facility made headlines in the past several weeks when a group of undocumented detainees held on immigration charges went on a hunger strike. The protest revolved around the general conditions of the facility, which had been exacerbated by the recent spike in COVID-19 cases. In response to the hunger strike, correctional officers allegedly revoked the strikers’ commissary access and forced them into their cells for multiple days, according to J.L., the pseudonym for a current Orange County detainee.
“The correction officers want to punish you and lock you up in your cell for breaking any kind of miniscule rule,” J.L.’s testimony said, as read by a representative Monday.
The detainee and others said they have been subject to racist remarks and retaliatory actions from guards, and have found that filing complaints provides little relief.
“If anyone files a complaint towards an officer, the next day that officer will have the same person that complained in their sites,” J.L.’s testimony said. “That's why we don't say anything – we'd rather say nothing and not report the things they do or say.”
In the instances where complaints are filed, J.L. said it’s unclear if they ever make a difference.
“The director…asked what was the complaint, and we said medical neglect and the mistreatment by officers, the beds and inedible food,” J.L. said. “In response, the director said that if we did not like the food, we can just throw it in the trash. And we should stop protesting because we are going to get into problems with the jail staff.”
Queens State Senator Jessica Ramos and Queens Assemblymember Catalina Cruz both spoke in support of the bill during Monday’s hearing and both noted that they have a number of constituents held by ICE in upstate detention centers.
“There's… a lot of people who are experiencing, what I would call, beyond deplorable conditions,” Cruz said. “We saw over the last year that lots of these detention centers would claim that they had policies in place to take care of the members of our community, but, I have to be honest, it almost felt like it was a show.”
The Dignity Not Detention Act is sponsored by 17 assemblymembers – including Queens Assemblymembers Zohran Mamdani, Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, David Weprin and Cruz – and 11 Senators – including Queens Senators Michael Gianaris and Ramos.
The bill is currently in the Committee on Corrections in the Assembly, which is chaired by Weprin.
“Local jails should not have a financial incentive to keep ICE detainees that shouldn’t be detained,” Weprin told the Eagle. “It’s all technical violations, there wasn't anybody that was dangerous but they were held as if they were regular prisoners.”
Though the bill isn’t currently on the committee’s calendar, Weprin said he’s “looking to put it on a future agenda…sooner rather than later.”
If the bill passes, it wouldn’t be the first time ICE contracts have come under scrutiny.
Last year, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice not to renew contracts with private detention centers.
The effects of that order played out in Queens last March when the federal government declined to renew a contract with the GEO Group, which operated the private Queens Detention Facility in Springfield Gardens.
Weprin said he expects the Dignity Not Detention Act to pass into law, and build on previous efforts to limit ICE detention in New York State.
“In New York State, we outlawed private prisons for that reason – somebody shouldn't be incarcerated based on a financial incentive,” he said. “This is basically contracts with the federal government and I think the same thing should apply with that.”
ICE did not respond to request for comment before print time.
