A personal detention center in southern New Mexico has sought to increase the number of inmates in its facilities after the state declared a public emergency under the COVID-19 pandemic.
Control and the company, which operates the Otero County Treatment Center, sent a letter dated March 31 to Otero County Director Pam Heltner. The letter said that due to a planned “significant decrease” in the number of migrants detained, the company would end its deal, but presented a solution.
NM Political Report won the letter from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, which received it through a request from the Freedom of Information Act.
“The MTC will be pleased to explore with you the option of partnering with other state or federal agencies to locate inmates in the OCPC to increase the overall population of the facility and make the ongoing operation of the ERM financially viable. “
Never miss a story. Subscribe today.
The MTC houses migrants detained through U. S. customs and immigration authorities. The personal company also operates the Otero County Correctional Center, which houses inmates detained through the United States Marshals Service and the State Decomponent of the Prison Administration. Both services are part of a giant complex in Chaparral. , near Texas.
Otero County’s earnings in the last fiscal year of control of the Otero County Treatment Center’s MTC and the Otero County Correctional Facility combined $457,730, Heltner said in an email to NM Political Report.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a public fitness emergency by COVID-19 and issued her first public fitness ordinance requiring the public to remain at home in the face of the spread of the disease on March 11, two weeks before the MTC sent her letter to Heltner.
Unless the county and TCM can simply “co-locate” more people to locate them at the Otero County processing center, the letter indicated that MTC would terminate its contract with Otero County on September 27.
“We hope that the inmate population will increase or that opportunities can be with ICE, Otero County or bondholders to allow the cancellation of this realization so that the MTC can continue to operate not only the OCPF (Otero County Correctional Facility), but also OCPC,” the letter says.
Despite the company’s offer, the county took no action, according to Heltner, who told the New Mexico Political Report in writing that “the status quo has been used all the time. “
Issa Arnita, MTC’s general communications manager, said the company signed a one-year contract with the county on September 1.
He also stated, in connection with the letter, that the MTC had “never worked with ICE with respect to the Otero County Processing Center. “
ICE spokesman Timothy Oberle sent a reaction indicating that the population of the Otero County Treatment Center had declined by 64% since early February.
“This minimization in the number of detainees has greater opportunities for social distancing and advanced measures to minimize the spread of the virus in the facility,” he said.
Arnita also said in her email that since the start of the pandemic, the population of the facility had declined and last Thursday had 225 people.
Coronavirus in New Mexico: Republicans and Democrats deeply divided over pandemic response
He did not answer a question directly about how the installation remains successful with so few occupied beds, but ice echoed that the reduced number of other detainees in the facility means that it can adhere to COVID-19 protection practices.
But Lujan Grisham contacted Vice President Mike Pence over the summer due to considerations about the outbreak at the Otero County Treatment Center and Otero County Jail, he said at a news convention in July.
Joachim Marjon, an IMMIGRATION attorney for the ACLU in New Mexico, said ICE custody detention centers across the country experienced widespread reduction in April or early May.
Marjon stated that ICE had freed some of them who were medically vulnerable to COVID-19 and, along with President Trump’s policies to prevent migrants from crossing the border in the spring, ICE has also done fewer raids to capture migrants who are already alive. in the United States still lack the right documentation, Marjon said.
But Marjon said there was enough evidence among the prisoners, which “probably minimizes the epidemic. “
Although the MTC’s letter to the county is dated March 31, the county first learned of its possible loss of source of income a few weeks earlier, in early March, Heltner said in writing. date of the letter – March 31 – to vote on the amendment of the county contract with the ERM.
The 3 commissioners unanimously approved the amendment. The amendment separated the Otero County Processing Center by contract from the Otero County Correctional Facility. Heltner told the assembly that the amendment would save him a general loss of earnings for the county if the MTC closed the detention center, as it would allow the MTC to continue administering the prison.
MTC has entered into a contract with Otero County to operate and administer the Otero County Processing Center since its structure in 2008, according to Heltner.
Lujan Grisham can do more to ensure that the personal comforts that prisoners and asylum detainees have control and treat COVID-19, according to legal experts and migrant advocates.
Others say, ”Hundreds of thousands, if millions”: New Mexico suffers a massive death of migratory birds
Lujan Grisham, in reaction to a consultation by the Santa Fe journalist at a press convention in July, said federal detention is not necessary to comply with state guidelines.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam asked Trump for help this summer for a migrant detention center in his state that has noticed a primary outbreak of COVID-19 and at least one dead inmate. The Virginia Senate leadership said the state may simply not act because the detention is in the middle of a federal contract, according to the Washington Post.
But Marjon told NM Political Report that Lujan Grisham can simply ask new Mexico’s personal criminal industry to adhere to COVID-19 practices.
“ICE does not manage (migrant detention) centres. They are in ICE’s custody, however, it is MTC or CoreCivic who administers it. If it’s limited to the food industry, I don’t see why you can’t make personal arrests,” Marjon said. Said.
Lujan Grisham’s press secretary, Nora Meyers Sackett, said she corroborates this with the state legal team.
But, Meyers Sackett added in an email, “if there is a way to use state authority for federal inmate coverage, it will be the state. “
Health professionals have tried to draw the attention of lawmakers to the plight of migrants detained for administrative reasons in ICE custody in March. The movement of detainees would be detrimental to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“
ICE’s policy report to NM states that in March, ICE convened an executive organization “to identify more advanced measures to minimize the spread of the virus. “
Read more: A large outbreak of COVID-19 in a criminal in southern New Mexico affects sex offenders. It’s through design.
As a result of the execution group, ICE makes efforts to reduce the population of detention centres to 75 according to a penny or less to be consistent with the commitment of greater social distance. Another target has been set for 70% or less at the facility. in accordance with the press release sent by email.
But Marjon said transfers stopped at ICE detention centers in New Mexico.
In addition, poor situations have been documented in the Otero County Resource Center in the past, such as dirty drinking water, insufficient food in terms of quality and quantity, and the use of solitary confinement as retaliation, documented in an Immigrant Freedom report. 2018.
A 2017 report through the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s Office on five ICE detention centers, adding the Otero County Treatment Center, unsolved several violations, including phones that made paintings and violations of segregation and enclosing of detained migrants.
According to ICE, there have been no known cases of COVID-19 at the Otero County Treatment Center and a total of 150 cases since the onset of the pandemic.
But for a Vera Institute of Justice research organization in Brooklyn, the number of positive COVID-19 cases across the country reported through ICE “seemed right,” said Dennis Kuo, senior knowledge researcher at the Vera Institute.
Researchers at the Vera Institute collected public information from ICE, conducted a simulation exam, and produced a report on this during the summer, and found that the number of possible cases of COVID-19 in ICE detention centers may be more than ten times higher than ice reports. Kuo said.
Related: New Mexico’s ACLU continues treatment of inmates amid coronavirus pandemic
“The most important thing not to forget is the order of magnitude,” Kuo said. “We hope that during this 60-day era (March 15 to May 15), 15 times more people would have contracted COVID-19. This is the order of magnitude to pay attention to. That’s more than ten times what they reported (ICE).
Kuo also stated that another thing not to forget about his report is that the prevalence of COVID-19 in ICE detention is not only “probably bad and much worse than ICE has reported,” but there is a significant lack of transparency about detainees in those facilities.
ICE stated that around the pandemic, ICE “has gone above and beyond to make some transparency regarding the number of positive cases of COVID-19 in ICE detention centres. “
But the lack of transparency has been a fear among many legal experts, lawyers and pandemic officials.
“ICE wants to be more transparent. This one would want to do this simulation job,” Kuo said.
This story was originally published through NM Political Report, nmpoliticalreport. com.
Read: