Closure
Before the facility was closed in 2016, it had been a "standout example of the problems at the BOP's private prisons". [4]
Almost 700 Cibola County inmates staged a non-violent protest of prison conditions on April 23, 2001 and were tear-gassed. [5] In March 2013 about 250 inmates staged another non-violent protest, which was resolved peacefully. Prison officials declined to reveal the reason for the protest. [6] As of June 2002, 95% of prisoners held in Cibola County were undocumented Mexican nationals. [7]
From 2007-2016, 30 of the 34 citations against the facility were related to poor medical care, including the lack of an on-location doctor, failure to perform CPR, and lack of mental health evaluation for a suicidal inmate. [8]
In August 2016, Justice Department officials announced that the FBOP would be phasing out its use of contracted facilities, on the grounds that private prisons provided less safe and less effective services with no substantial cost savings. The agency expected to allow current contracts on its thirteen remaining private facilities to expire. [9] The same month CCA announced that their federal contract had not been renewed. The FBOP removed its last prisoner on October 1, and facility was slated to close with the loss of about 300 local jobs. [10]
ICE administration
The facility was reopened with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract under CCA's new name, CoreCivic. [11]
There are open lawsuits and investigations related to deaths of people who were detained in the facility since October 2016. [12] A 2018 hearing at the New Mexico state capitol documented experiences of abuse and negligence at both Cibola and Otero County Prison Facility. [13]
Transgender migrant detention
Cibola County includes housing for the detention of transgender migrant detainees, one of the only such facilities after protests by immigrant groups led to the closure of the dedicated ICE GBT Pod that had housed gay, bisexual, and transgender detainees in Santa Ana. [14] In November 2018, Roxsana Hernandez Rodriguez, a 33 year old transgender woman seeking asylum from Honduras died from dehydration and complications from [HIV/AIDS|HIV infection] after having been detained at CCCC for a single night. Hernandez had been in ICE custody for 16 days when she died, and been hospitalized for the same conditions a week before arriving at Cibola County. An independent autopsy paid for by the Transgender Law Center, a group that sued ICE on behalf of Hernandez, reported signs of physical abuse predating Hernandez's detention. Hernandez had entered the US illegally three times before, and had been deported in 2006, 2009, and 2014 following convictions for theft and prostitution. [15] Eight ICE detainees died in 2018, with half of those occurring after detention in facilities operated by CoreCivic. [13] While transgender women detained at the facility face significant mental health challenges, they are more likely to have legal representation than other detainees. [16]
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