‘Lives continue to be in danger’: Lawmakers want FL migrant detention center to close

A group of 17 members of Congress asked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday to shutter a Florida detention center that houses migrant detainees and that is at the heart of multiple complaints made to the Biden administration.

The Feb. 2 letter points to a slew of recent grievances from immigration advocates and watchdog groups, including allegations of sexual misconduct, medical negligence, racist violence and more at the Glades County Detention Center. The county jail, near Lake Okeechobee and west of Palm Beach County, is run by the county sheriff’s office and has a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold immigrants in federal custody.

“No one should be treated this way, especially under your watch and at the taxpayer’s expense,” reads the letter, signed by Broward U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz among others. “People’s lives continue to be in danger every minute that the Glades Detention Center remains open.”

It’s the second time, following a July 2021 correspondence, that Wasserman Schultz and other federal officials sent a letter to Mayorkas asking him to terminate ICE’s contract with the facility.

“While it’s a nightmare for people housed there, taxpayers would be similarly insulted by this detention center’s scandalous history of flouting court orders and generating widespread criticism over its poor conditions, all while operating at a low capacity,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement from Freedom for Immigrants. “This ICE prison deserves nothing more than a speedy closure.”

Other Florida lawmakers, including Representatives Charlie Crist, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Ted Deutch, Al Lawson, Lois Frankel, Darren Soto and Frederica Wilson, also signed the letter.

A DHS spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday that Mayorkas had directed ICE to shutter two detention facilities last May, and that he would be issuing more memos related to immigration detention.

“ICE has been actively working with the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the DHS Office of the Inspector General, and the DHS Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman to ensure that detention facilities are held to the appropriate health and safety standards,” the spokesperson said.

An ICE spokesperson referred the matter to DHS. Glades County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Duane Pottorff declined to comment on the letter.

Over 35 complaints

A week ago, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington made a complaint to federal officials, saying the county jail was not keeping surveillance footage for as long as was required under federal law.

The congressional letter mentions the ACLU/CREW complaint as one among more than 35 complaints about the detention center that have been made since the pandemic began in March 2020. At least 15 of those have happened since President Biden took office in January 2021, according to the letter.

A group of detainees said there was a lack of medical care and COVID-19 prevention measures, as well as constitutional rights violations, at the facility in a Feb. 2021 federal complaint. In another complaint in August, seven women detained at Glades said they were victims of medical negligence and sexual misconduct by staff.

A Sept. 2021 complaint filed by a coalition of immigrant advocates and service providers claimed that seven Black immigrants were experiencing racial violence at Glades and abused through the use of pepper spray, solitary confinement and excessive force. The complaint was addressed to the inspector general and the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at DHS.

The congressional letter also cites a November incident in which detainees had to be hospitalized due to carbon monoxide poisoning at the center. It also mentions a memo from the ACLU of Florida, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and other organizations sent in November to DHS documenting allegations of “systemic and consistent patterns of racism and anti-blackness towards Black immigrants” at the facility.

Following the correspondence from Wasserman Schultz and other federal lawmakers, immigrant rights organizations who make up the Shut Down Glades Coalition doubled down on their calls to close down the center.

“The patterns of abuse and neglect at Glades make it a death trap, and it must be closed immediately and permanently,” said Rebecca Talbot of the Florida-based Immigrant Action Alliance.

Read the letter below:

This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 4:31 PM.