A detainee at a Nevada immigration detention center said he was denied medication before suffering a seizure and was left to lie on the floor of his cell for three days without soap, a shower or adequate toilet paper, according to a federal complaint filed with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The complaint was one of 61 filed in 2023 by detainees with the DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, prompting the launch of a federal investigation into Nevada’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities earlier this year. The investigation has not been previously reported and officials cited the high number of complaints for their inquiry.
The Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump received 36 allegations of medical negligence, racial discrimination and verbal assaults. The Nye County Detention Center faced 25 allegations from detainees.
Many of the complaints mentioned detainees’ problems accessing health care services — ranging from being ignored by medical staff to one patient accidentally being injected with insulin. ICE policy stipulates that facilities must provide “comprehensive medical and mental health care for noncitizens from the moment they arrive.”
Many detainees also complained that they were verbally abused, unable to communicate with ICE staff because of language barriers and/or routinely denied access to legal services.
There were more than 200 people in ICE custody in Nevada as of this month, a likely underestimate according to the U.S Government Accountability Office. Detainees are arrested by ICE for being in the country illegally and are held while they await court.
According to the complaints — redacted to protect the detainees’ identities — the onsite investigations would review the conditions of the facility, staff communication and medical and mental health care. Investigators would also look into allegations of retaliation and retaliatory transfers while assessing ICE policies in responding to the allegations.
However, investigators have not revealed any updates publicly about the investigations since February, when the DHS initially announced the probe. ICE officials did not respond to a request for comment from The Nevada Independent.
Freedom for Immigrants, an immigrant advocacy group that helped several ICE detainees file the complaints, told The Nevada Independent that it has not received any updates since March.
The group noted that the investigatory process is often riddled with issues, and that these “complaints can’t really tell the full story.”
“There’s no real independent oversight over these detention facilities that are effectively run like prisons,” Amanda Diaz, an organizing director for Freedom for Immigrants, said in an interview. “CRCL (DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties) may investigate these complaints on their own, but we see that the majority of them don’t get investigated. It’s like ICE investigating ICE.”
What’s in the complaints?
Eleven of 18 complaints were related to lack of medical care and access to an adequate amount of clean food and water.
However, one of the largest issues that Diaz disclosed was the lack of adequate legal counsel and the apparent illegal use of retaliation after complaints were filed.
“There’s a huge risk of retaliation when people speak up,” Diaz said. “The scare tactic has been used by ICE since its inception to deter individuals coming forward to uncover what’s happening inside of immigration detention centers.”
One detainee wrote in his redacted complaint about significant delays he and other detainees experienced in receiving “interviews” about their immigration status and that he was only allowed to make one outside phone call his entire stay. Another person alleged that ICE officers didn’t allow him to attend a scheduled status meeting and said he would have to wait up to two months for his next “interview.” Some detainees, he said, were subject to longer wait times.
Part of the issue, according to complainants, is that there is a significant language barrier between officials and detainees, putting an additional strain on what many described as a discriminatory and racist atmosphere. Without translators, detainees are often unable to adequately express their needs.
History of complaints
A 2017 DHS investigation of the Southern Nevada detention facility in Henderson found that detainees were receiving delayed medical care and that medical staff didn’t have access to detainees’ medical records or appropriate equipment. Investigators also called for a review of sexual abuse policies.
Last year, several Nevada-based advocacy groups, including the UNLV Immigration Clinic and Arriba Workers Center, filed complaints alleging racially motivated mistreatment of detainees in ICE facilities, including cases of medical neglect and denial to adequate legal services. Detainees at the Nye County facility said in complaints that ICE officials told them a local hospital would not treat them and that they were transferred to Nevada from California after seeking medical care because treatment was “cheaper” here.
After making multiple medical complaints, Erik Mercado, an ICE detainee, was transferred to the Nevada holding center and reported sleeping next to a urinal because of overcrowding. He continues to be held in ICE detention, according to Freedom for Immigrants.
In an open letter sent last year, Arriba Workers Center and Freedom for Immigrants said these incidents are part of a wider pattern of racism, citing a 2020 case of a captain at the Nevada Southern Detention Center who was fired after he was revealed to have ties to a neo-Nazi group and planned to establish a white nationalist chapter in the area. He was fired following an investigation.
Diaz said part of the problem with the investigation process is that individual agencies, such as ICE and DHS, end up “investigating itself,” often resulting in no substantive oversight. The oversight process can be additionally complicated for private companies such as CoreCivic, which operates the Nevada Southern Detention Center and has a “profit incentive” to keep detainees in detention, she said.
“What we see again and again is that reports are filed and deficiencies are found and recommendations are made, but that they don’t really result in meaningful change, and that people are continuing to face these conditions,” Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network, a national immigration rights coalition, said.
CoreCivic, which made $552.2 million in revenue from its ICE detention contracts in 2022, routinely conducts internal audits that are available on its website, all of which say that the Nevada Southern Detention Center meets standards.
The April 2023 audit of the Nevada Southern Detention Center required under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, for example, found that there were 10 reported but ultimately unsubstantiated cases of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse that year.
Public officials including Sen. Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) have repeatedly called for a review of Nevada’s ICE detention centers.
In 2020 and 2022, both sent letters to DHS demanding they investigate safety conditions and access to legal counsel. In September 2020, Cortez Masto also toured the Nevada Southern Detention Center after the facility was sued by 25 detainees about COVID-19 concerns and living situations.
