Numerous immigrants jailed at CoreCivic prison claim sexual misconduct by staff worker
This post was originally published on this site
The CoreCivic-operated Otay Mesa Detention Center in California is back in the news for the usual, but no less horrific, reason: it’s abusive treatment of people in its custody.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that a number of immigrants have reported sexual misconduct by a staff worker, who they say walked into their cells unannounced and stared at their groins and buttocks while making inappropriate remarks. One of the men said that during one of these unwanted visits, the staff worker had a visible erection.
“It’s pretty disturbing for me to even relive this,” Erik Mercado told The San Diego Union-Tribune. He recalled that when he questioned the staffer about what he was doing in his cell, the staffer responded that he was “looking for something big.”
RELATED STORY: Psychologist further traumatized immigrants detained at odious facility, civil rights complaint says
The private prison profiteer said the complaints were under investigation, and claimed that the company “is committed to the safety and dignity of every person entrusted to our care,” the report said. But the record doesn’t lie: Otay Mesa Detention Center is an abusive shithole that should be shut down.
“Sexual abuse ranging from verbal harassment to the extremes of rape are rampant, and it’s often covered up by the perpetrators,” Freedom For Immigrants’ Amanda Díaz told The San Diego Union-Tribune. She manages the free legal hotline attacked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Mercado and three other men also reported the abuses to through the hotline. “ICE operates under a veil of secrecy, and it leaves those who have been harmed with pretty much no path for justice.”
Other immigrants said in a civil rights complaint last month that they were mocked, belittled, and further traumatized by a contracted psychologist after asking for mental health care. Sergio Manrique Gutierrez said in the complaint that Hrysso Fernbach was mocking him within minutes of sitting down in front of her.
“On that day I was in her office and within three minutes she said to me, ‘There is nothing wrong with you … Let me guess, you’ve been here since you were a little kid and this is all you know… You want me to write you a letter for the judge so he can let you stay here.’” Manrique Gutierrez had “struggled with psychotic and mild neurocognitive disabilities for many years,” the complaint said. He said visiting this doctor, who already had a disturbing history even before arriving to Otay Mesa, “only made me feel worse than I did before seeing her.”
It seems that if CoreCivic truly were “committed to the safety and dignity of every person entrusted to our care,” this doctor wouldn’t have been treating vulnerable people at Otay Mesa in the first place.
House lawmakers joined advocates last fall in urging the Biden administration to terminate Otay Mesa’s contract, citing “repeated violations of the ICE standards and the excessive waste of federal funds.” They noted a DHS inspector general report confirming the facility had at the start of the pandemic tried to force immigrants into signing a liability form protecting the site if they wanted a protective face mask.
ICE is also abusing immigrants at huge benefit to private prison companies, lawmakers noted at the time. “The contracts to run these facilities are designed in such a way—particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the September 21, 2021 DHS enforcement priorities—to guarantee government waste,” legislators said. “ICE pays an estimated $1.34 million dollars every day on unused beds through guaranteed minimum contracts, such as the ones with Otay Mesa and Adelanto.” They noted that from April 2020 to March 2021, CoreCivic reaped $22 million for used beds.
RELATED STORIES: ‘Repeated violations’: California lawmakers call on DHS to end three ICE contracts in state
San Diego’s wretched Otay Mesa immigration prison is seeing near-record COVID-19 cases
Detainees were told they’d have to sign contract letting facility off the hook if they wanted masks