A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of seven U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees previously housed at Jefferson County Justice Center accuses the center of unsanitary conditions and inadequate health care.
The lawsuit, filed by Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center on Wednesday, aims to keep ICE from housing detainees at the center until the problems are addressed.
Among those problems, the lawsuit alleges, are documented reports of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, tuberculosis, respiratory infections and skin funguses among the ICE population at the center. Detainee requests for medical treatment were routinely ignored, the lawsuit contends.
Drinking water was brown and putrid, showers and restrooms were mold-encrusted, jail pods were poorly ventilated, jail uniforms were dirty and torn and detainees had no outdoor recreation or meaningful access to sunlight, the lawsuit alleges.
The center failed ICE inspections in four consecutive years before gaining a contract with ICE, and inspections that have taken place since then were based on detention standards that have been superseded, the lawsuit alleges.
People are also reading…
Federal detainees were removed from the center late last year.
“ICE’s contract with Jefferson County contradicts Congress’ mandate to detain immigrants in facilities that meet humane standards. ICE’s failure to adequately inspect and conduct proper oversight of the jail has set the stage for widespread, deplorable conditions of detention,” NIJC Associate Director of Litigation Claudia Valenzuela said. “The government cannot be allowed to confine people in facilities that are unable to provide for basic care and human rights.”
The facility’s medical provider resigned effective Jan. 1 but the county recently entered a contract with a new provider so that detainees could return to the center by April, if not sooner.
Last year, the ICE contract brought more than $2 million to the county’s coffers. The withdrawal of detainees resulted in a number of layoffs that the county hoped to reverse when detainees returned to the center.
Jefferson County Board Chairman Robert White, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit along with Sheriff Roger Mulch, ICE and two of its employees, said he had not seen the lawsuit and therefore could not comment on its specifics.
However, “We knew there was an issue with medical care and we have addressed it. I will talk to the sheriff to see if the other issues have any validity and we’ll go from there,” he said.
Attempts to reach Mulch and an ICE media representative were not immediately successful Wednesday.
618-927-5633
On Twitter: @beckymalkovich
