‘It’s like they’re kidnapped there’: families tell of distress over ‘inhumane’ ICE jail | US immigration

In mid-May, Elder Guerra slipped and fell while showering at the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility.

Guerra, a Guatemalan immigrant, has been detained in a New Jersey prison for nearly five months. He was arrested by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in Newark in January while helping a friend move his snow-covered car. Police officers approached and asked several questions, according to a relative who spoke to the Guardian.

Guerra has been in the United States for eight years and is currently fighting a deportation case at the detention center, which has seen violent protests over the past two weeks, where some of those detained have gone on hunger and labor strikes to protest conditions.

Guerra’s fall was bad. According to the relative who received accounts from other detainees, he hit the back of his skull on the ground, fell unconscious and began having a seizure.

Others detained in the unit reportedly became alarmed and begged guards to call an ambulance. After much pleading from other detainees, Guerra was taken to the hospital. That same week, he was transferred back to Delaney Hall and placed in a medical isolation cell.

“It’s been almost three weeks and he’s getting worse,” Guerra’s relative told the Guardian, asking to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from ICE. “He has a headache. When he looks at the light, he gets uncomfortable and tired. When he looks at the television screen, he gets dizzy. When he tries to stand up and walk, he gets dizzy.”

“He needs medical attention. He is not in a good place to recover,” the relative said, adding that Guerra began to lose the hearing in his left ear.

Guerra is one of two people held in medical isolation cells at Delaney. based on To New Jersey congressional representative LaMonica McIver. A third person using a wheelchair was detained in the same unit. launched Thursday afternoon.

The Delaney Hall facility, operated by private prison company GEO Group, opened last year and has repeatedly faced accusations of substandard medical care, inedible food and negligent guards. According to the report, multiple oversight visits by members of Congress found that the facility had conditions that would meet detainees’ demands. MPs‘ accounts.

Between hunger and labor strikes inside and demonstrations outside, government officials—first ICE officers, then New Jersey state police and Newark police—responded with pepper spray, cannons, beatings, tear gas, and arrests of dozens of protesters.

Families of immigrants detained at Delaney Hall have had to deal with repeated visitation permits and chaos to visit their loved ones. Some told the Guardian how sad, angry and worried they were for their loved ones, and how they hoped they would be released soon to continue their immigration cases.

Guerra’s relative has visited her since her fall and talked about it through tears.

“He kept saying to me, ‘Help me. I have to leave here,'” the relative said. “But I told him, ‘I can’t do anything because it’s out of my hands.’ I’m trying to pay a lawyer to do something for them.”

He remembered touching his loved one’s neck and feeling the warmth of the fire he experienced.

Now, from the outside looking in, Guerra’s relative is having trouble focusing on anything other than worrying about her family member in custody.

“The thing that saddens me the most after the accident is what happened to the Hispanic community in this country,” he added. “They treat us like animals, like we have no value. We are not criminals, we are workers, we are trying to get ahead.”

Last Tuesday, under scorching early June sunlight and surrounded by state police barricades, protesters and reporters, Christopher Castro and his mother arrived at Delaney Hall for their first visit in weeks. They had driven nearly three hours east of New York City from their hometown on Long Island for a 30-minute visit with Christopher’s father.

“My father told me that a lot of people inside were pressuring their lawyers to get them out,” Castro said after the visit. Their loved ones inside did not join the strike for fear of retaliation. “This is so crazy. I hope they are all released and we can work on this.” [immigration case] outside.”

His relatives came and went in the afternoon. A mother and daughter cried as they walked to their car after visiting a relative. Another woman and a young boy with neatly combed hair and a polo shirt watched as they waited their turn to enter the large, scary-looking, barbed-wire fenced facility; The boy was silently holding the woman’s hand.

On Tuesday night, immigrants detained at Delaney Hall published a fourth public letter dated May 31 since the strike began, repeating their allegations about conditions inside.

“The conditions in this prison are unfit for human beings for such a long period of time: medical neglect, water unfit for consumption, food that is expired and in bad condition, bathrooms that are unusable, ventilation systems that are not maintained, and because of this we are constantly sick.” letter reader. “We demand freedom, fair trial and respect for our rights.”

The first three letters published by striking detainees included a series of demands: a meeting with New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill, who came under fire from protesters; release of sick and elderly detainees; for faster progress of immigration cases; and that immigration officials stop pressuring them to sign documents agreeing to deportation.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to requests for detailed comment.

Meanwhile, at a time when national attention was on Delaney Hall, DHS officials repeatedly claimed that the people they arrested were “criminals” and the “worst of the worst.” But recently Data review of ICE’s own data Austin Kocher, an assistant research professor at Syracuse University and an expert on immigration data and policy, found that DHS’s claims are grossly exaggerated.

According to the latest data from mid-March, 88 percent of immigrants detained at Delaney Hall during that period had no criminal convictions and just over 70 percent had no criminal history. The majority of those with criminal convictions were charged with low-level crimes, Kocher reported.

Despite claims that most immigration violations involve civil law, not criminal law, the second Trump administration detained a record number of people and deported many, including people whose U.S. documents were no longer accepted.

GEO Group, the largest private prison operator in the USA, operates Delaney Hall currently has a billion-dollar contract to operate it for 15 years.

“The food is not that good, the bathrooms are dirty,” said Maria Santos, whose husband is detained inside. Santos was also allowed to visit him on Tuesday afternoon.

The hunger and labor strike started on May 22. She told the Guardian that Santos’ husband did not join the strike for fear of retaliation from GEO Group guards and ICE officials. “We don’t know if they can get it [out] against them and so on,” he said.

Striking detainees had already accused DHS and GEO Group officials of retaliation.

“Since the strike started, we have been subjected to reprisals, discrimination, ridicule, ill-treatment and threats, especially from ‘GEO’. [Group] The last letter says: “They constantly threaten us with deportation, transfer to penal units and transfer from one detention center to another; They take pictures of us in dormitories without our consent and tell us that we have no rights here.”

“GEO strongly denies these allegations,” a company spokesperson said in response to a request for comment. “The support services GEO provides include 24-hour access to medical care, in-person and virtual legal and family visitation, public and legal library access, translation services, dietitian-approved meals, religious and special diets, recreational opportunities, and opportunities to practice their religious beliefs.”

GEO Group referred all questions regarding Guerra’s case to DHS.

Gabriela Soto, whose husband Martin was detained at Delaney and who joined the strike, helped organize protests outside the facility.

“When I started going on visits and seeing these people telling their stories, it made me so angry that their voices weren’t being heard,” Soto told the Guardian, the anger in his voice clear. “What really pissed me off was being served worms in exchange for food. It made me so angry that I had to do something. We needed their voices to be heard, which is why the protest started in the first place.”

Martin Soto was arrested by ICE in early February while buying diapers for his children.

“The conditions there are terrible. The food smells. It’s expired, it’s clunky. They’re served worms crawling on their plates. You wouldn’t even give worms to an animal,” Soto added.

DHS has repeatedly denied claims about conditions at Delaney Hall and denied that “subprime” conditions could exist there, just as it has denied similar claims about other ICE detention centers.

On May 24, deputies and Sherrill arrived at the facility for a surveillance visit. When Soto and others tried to block Martin Soto’s transfer, ICE officers pepper-sprayed protesters, including U.S. senator Andy Kim. Martin Soto was transferred to another ICE detention center, but the ordeal drew more protesters to Delaney Hall.

Meanwhile, Guerra’s relative has not visited her since the strike began, nor since family visitation was resumed last Sunday. On Tuesday, facility officials and police were asking relatives to provide their full names for visitation, making Guerra’s relative nervous that the information would be shared with ICE.

“What he said to me made me very sad,” the relative said, describing his first visit after Guerra’s fall. “Because they [detainees inside Delaney Hall] they can’t do anything; It’s like they were kidnapped there. “As their family members, we want to do something, but we can’t, it’s out of our hands.”

“What happened is inhumane, it makes me sad to see so many people there,” he said. “They [officials] “There should be mercy, they are human beings.”