U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety.
Immigration detention is the policy of holding individuals suspected of visa violations, illegal entry or unauthorized arrival, as well as those subject to deportation and removal until a decision is made by immigration authorities to grant a visa and release them into the community, or to repatriate them to their country of departure. Mandatory detention refers to the practice of compulsorily detaining or imprisoning people seeking political asylum, or who are considered to be illegal immigrants or unauthorized arrivals into a country. Some countries have set a maximum period of detention, while others permit indefinite detention.
CoreCivic, formerly the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), is a company that owns and manages private prisons and detention centers and operates others on a concession basis. Co-founded in 1983 in Nashville, Tennessee by Thomas W. Beasley, Robert Crants, and T. Don Hutto, it received investments from the Tennessee Valley Authority, Vanderbilt University, and Jack C. Massey, the founder of Hospital Corporation of America.
The GEO Group, Inc. (GEO) is a publicly traded C corporation that invests in private prisons and mental health facilities in North America, Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, the company's facilities include illegal immigration detention centers, minimum security detention centers, and mental-health and residential-treatment facilities. It also operates government-owned facilities pursuant to management contracts. As of December 31, 2021, the company managed and/or owned 86,000 beds at 106 facilities. In 2019, agencies of the federal government of the United States generated 53% of the company's revenues. Up until 2021 the company was designated as a real estate investment trust, at which time the board of directors elected to reclassify as a C corporation under the stated goal of reducing the company's debt.
The T. Don Hutto Residential Center is a guarded, fenced-in, multi-purpose center currently used to detain non-US citizens awaiting the outcome of their immigration status. The center is located at 1001 Welch Street in the city of Taylor, Texas, within Williamson County. Formerly a medium-security state prison, it is operated by the CoreCivic under contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency through an ICE Intergovernmental Service Agreement (IGA) with Williamson County, Texas. In 2006, Hutto became an immigrant-detention facility detaining immigrant families. The facility was turned into a women's detention center in 2009.
Northwest Detention Center is a privately-run detention center located on the tide flats of the Port of Tacoma in Tacoma, Washington, USA. The detention center is operated by the GEO Group on behalf of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The NWDC's current capacity is 1575, making it one of the largest detention centers in the United States. Numerous hunger strikes have been launched by inmates of the NWDC to protest the Center's poor conditions. Detainees have repeatedly reported overcrowding, a lack of medical attention, and severely unsanitary conditions, especially during COVID-19: "they're not even offering us soap."
The United States government holds tens of thousands of immigrants in detention under the control of Customs and Border Protection and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Immigrants are detained for unlawful entry to the United States, when their claims for asylum are received, and in the process of deportation and removal from the country. During Fiscal Year 2018, 396,448 people were booked into ICE custody: 242,778 of whom were detained by CBP and 153,670 by ICE's own enforcement operations. A daily average of 42,188 immigrants were held by ICE in that year. In addition, over twelve thousand immigrant children are housed by facilities under the supervision of the Office of Refugee Resettlement's program for Unaccompanied Alien Children. Prior to referral to these other agencies, the CBP holds immigrants at processing centers; between mid-May and mid-June 2019, it held between 14,000 and 18,000 immigrants.
Willacy County Correctional Center is a closed detention center located on the east side of Route 77, at the edge of Raymondville City, Willacy County, Texas, United States.
Adelanto Detention Facility is a privately operated immigration detention center in Adelanto, San Bernardino County, California. Owned and operated by the GEO Group, it consists of two separate facilities: East, which was an existing prison purchased in June 2010 from the City of Adelanto with a capacity of about 600 inmates, and the newly built West expansion completed in August 2012 with another 700 beds. After an additional expansion in 2015, the facility's capacity houses up to 1,940 immigrant detainees of all classification levels, with the average stay of 30 days.
South Louisiana ICE Processing Center is a privately owned and operated prison facility located on the eastern edge of Basile in Acadia Parish, Louisiana. The facility was opened in 1993 by the private prison company LCS Corrections Services and is currently owned and operated by The GEO Group, Inc. It has a capacity of 1,000.
The Central Arizona Florence Correctional Complex, formerly Central Arizona Detention Center and Florence Correctional Complex, is a privately owned and operated managed prison for men and women located in Florence, Pinal County, Arizona. The facility is run by Corrections Corporation of America and houses prisoners for the United States Marshals Service (USMS), TransCor America LLC, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Pascua Yaqui Tribe, United States Air Force, and City of Mesa.
The United States family separation policy under the Trump administration was presented to the public as a "zero tolerance" approach intended to deter illegal immigration and to encourage tougher legislation. In some cases, families following the legal procedure to apply for asylum at official border crossings were also separated. It was officially adopted across the entire US–Mexico border from April 2018 until June 2018. Under the policy, federal authorities separated children and infants from parents or guardians with whom they had entered the US. The adults were prosecuted and held in federal jails or deported, and the children were placed under the supervision of the US Department of Health and Human Services. More than 5,500 children, including infants, were removed and hundreds have still not been reunited as of August 2022.
Family detention is the detention of multiple family members together in an immigration detention context. In the U.S. they are referred to as family detention camps,family detention centers, or family detention facilities.
Occupy ICE is a series of protests, modeled on the Occupy Movement, that emerged in the United States in reaction to the Trump administration family separation policy, with a goal of disrupting operations at several U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) locations.
Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejía was a 57-year-old man from El Salvador who had immigrated to the United States in 1980 and lived in Los Angeles for over 20 years. He had left the country after the Salvadoran Civil War, a US-backed military conflict, broke out. In an article on Escobar Mejía's death, Graig Graziosi of The Independent reported on the tragic web of violence that surrounded his life, after "US-backed death squads terrorized civilians and were accused of raping and murdering American missionaries" while using "scorched earth" tactics contributed to the scattering of civilian populations. Carlos and his sister Rosa Escobedo Mejía fled to the US to live with their older sister Maribel. His status in the US was undocumented. On May 6, 2020, he was reportedly the first immigrant to die from COVID-19 in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the 11th immigrant to die in government custody in the fiscal year. He died at the Paradise Valley Hospital in National City.
The COVID-19 pandemic in U.S. immigration detention has been covered extensively since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. More than 38,000 people were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the time of the outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States. ICE's response to the outbreak in detention facilities has been widely characterized as substandard and dangerous. Harmful practices have been reported in numerous facilities managed by third-party private contractors with ICE. For example, reports found that HDQ Neutral disinfectant was used over 50 times per day in un-ventilated areas, which caused pain, bleeding, and severe illness to numerous people held in Adelanto Detention Center, a private prison managed by GEO Group Inc.
Berks County Residential Center (BCRC), also known as Berks Family Residential Center and as the Berks County detention center, is a 96-bed immigration detention center in Leesport, Berks County, Pennsylvania, operated by Berks County on contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The center operated as a family detention center from March 2001 to March 2021.
The Glades County Detention Center, at 1297 East State Road 78 in remote Moore Haven, Florida, United States, opened in 2007 with 440 beds. Operated by the Glades County Sheriff's Office, besides Glades County arrestees, 90% of its beds house Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees, which were previously spread around many county jails. It is Glades County's largest employer. It has been the site of widespread abuses, and in 2022, 17 members of Congress asked that it be closed.
In 2011, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency revised its national detention standards and developed the Performance-Based National Detention Standards. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, "the PBNDS 2011 are crafted to improve medical and mental health services, increase access to legal services and religious opportunities, improve communication with detainees with no or limited English proficiency, improve the process for reporting and responding to complaints, and increase recreation and visitation." The PBNDS of 2011 is an important step in United States detention reform. Many revisions reflect efforts to tailor detention practices to the United States border's unique demands and circumstances. The PBNDS of 2011 revised detention standards among seven different sections. Although all sections detail essential contributions to improving the safety, security, order, care, activities, justice, and administration/management of U.S. border control, there are sections pertaining to the specific conditions of undocumented women.
