ACLU Says Immigration Detention Facility Should Be Shut Down

Average daily population of detained immigrants held by the United States government for the fiscal years 1994–2018.  Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Eileen Sullivan for the New York Times reports that

"[t]he American Civil Liberties Union is calling on the Biden administration to close one of its privately run immigration detention centers after a Brazilian asylum seeker killed himself while he was being held in the New Mexico facility.

The Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia, New Mexico has been under scrutiny for months. In an unusual step earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general issued an alert calling for the Biden administration to relocate the detainees immediately."

The ACLU claims that conditions at the Torrance facility are “atrocious.” Records describe "structural issues with the building and complaints by detainees that they could not reach their lawyers and that the drinking water was making them sick."

The situation at Torrance revives a debate over the mass detention of immigrants, including asylum seekers, in private facilities.

 

KJ