"It's Not the Final Victory": Closure of Notorious ICE Facilities First Step In Longer Journey
"We think the detention centers should be closed, period. All of them."
In late May, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was terminating its contract with the Bristol County Sheriff's Department in Massachusetts.
Rafael Pizarro, a prominent member of Bristol County for Correctional Justice, told me that he was "fucking ecstatic" when the news broke.
"It's very exciting, a huge victory, but it's not the final victory," Pizzaro said.
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"The detention centers should be closed, period"
Pizzaro and other activists in the community have been fighting for years to end the agreement that placed migrants in the care of Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, an anti-immigrant law enforcement officer whose cruelty has repeatedly made national headlines. As I’ve reported, Bristol County’s treatment of detainees is among the worst in the country.
The news that Hodgson would no longer be in charge of migrant detention is welcome—though the win is just one battle in a wider war. There are still detention centers around the country holding people.
In Pizzaro's view, that means there's more work to be done. He noted that under the Biden administration, there's over 16,000 children being held at immigrant detention centers around the country.
"We don't believe that children should be in detention at all," Pizzaro said.
"We think the detention centers should be closed, period," he added. "All of them."
The next step for Bristol County, Pizzaro told me, is to end Hodgson's oversight for any detainees or prisoners. The sheriff only believes in punishment, and that makes him the wrong person for the job, and a dangerous one, said Pizzaro.
"He's proud of ending programs that would help with rehabilitation," said Pizzaro.
Hodgson's record of detainee mistreatment is lengthy, and disturbing. As I reported in 2018, immigrant detainees in the jail complained of rampant mistreatment, threats and abuse—and in 2020 filed a lawsuit demanding their release due to unsanitary and dangerous conditions as the coronavirus raged inside the facility.
"He can't bring himself to treat people any better," said Pizzaro.
The sheriff's response
Mayorkas referred to the pattern of abuse at the jail in a public memo he sent to ICE Acting Director Tae Johnson, saying that the department "will not tolerate the mistreatment of individuals in civil immigration detention or substandard conditions of detention.”
“This marks an important first step to realizing that goal. DHS detention facilities and the treatment of individuals in those facilities will be held to our health and safety standards,” Mayorkas added. "Where we discover they fall short, we will continue to take action as we are doing today.”
In response, Hodgson sent a letter to Mayorkas on June 2 objecting to the characterization of his deputies and practices and targeted Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who released a scathing report on Bristol County's jails in 2020, as connected to "far-left groups."
I asked Hodgson spokesman Jonathan Darling what groups the sheriff was referring to.
"There are several far-left political groups that are always slamming the Sheriff on social media and work closely with the AG," Darling replied. "I don’t know their names but they’re not hard to find."
"This is a long fight"
Mayorkas also announced the ending of the agency's agreement with the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia "as soon as possible and consistent with any legal obligations." Irwin gained notoriety in 2020 after it was revealed that doctors at the facility were forcibly sterilizing migrant women in ICE's care.
While the facility is expected to be closed, the language used by Mayorkas indicates that it will require some time and legal wrangling. Kevin Caron of Georgia Detention Watch, an advocacy group that works for immigrant and detainee rights in the state, told me that his group has heard that the Irwin warden told prison staff recently not to believe "the lies" and that there have been new transfers into the facility in recent weeks.
"But my understanding is that if the DHS secretary says he's going to close it, they're going to close it," Caron said. "It just might take more time than Bristol."
Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director of Atlanta-based civil rights organization Project South, told me that she welcomes the imminent Irwin closure but warned that other facilities in the state, like Stewart Detention Center, are also dangerous and rampant with human rights abuses.
"This is a long fight," Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director of Atlanta-based civil rights organization Project South, told me. "We've been working on this to expose the violations and try to shut this place down for about 10 years."
"They stopped talking about abuses in detention"
Despite the Irwin closure, Stewart, which Shahshahani called "one of the deadliest ICE prisons in the country," will remain open for migrant detainees. Shahshahani told me she wants to see more action on the part of Democrats to shut down the facility.
"A lot of criticism for good reason is directed at the Trump administration for what's happening and abuses at Irwin and yet abuses are ongoing," Shahshahani said. "So why have the Democratic members of Congress in particular, why have they stopped talking about abuses in detention or deaths in detention, including the first death in immigration detention that happened at Stewart under Biden?"
Bottom line, said Caron, is that the way the US detention system is set up there's just no safe way to hold people. That means Bristol and Irwin have to be the first steps on the road to abolition.
"I really don't think there's a humane way to incarcerate large groups of people in these detention centers, let alone people who are being locked up simply because they are undocumented," Caron said.
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