Human beings don’t belong in cages
Human beings don’t belong in cages. Yet Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) imprisons tens of thousands of asylum-seekers and other noncitizens every day, just because of their immigration status. These “civil detention” facilities dotted throughout the United States are notorious for their unsanitary conditions, rampant abuse, violent conduct, negligent and racist medical care, and irresponsibly callous response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Respond Crisis Translation and Centro Legal de la Raza combined efforts to give detainees one more tool in their fight against the oppressive conditions of ICE prisons. Together, we have translated the PBNDS, a 455 page guide that outlines standards of care that ICE detention centers need to meet..
While the PBNDS supposedly sets standards for the roughly 200 ICE facilities in the U.S., tens of thousands of detainees are living in inhumane and life threatening conditions. For example, a 2020 report on the Howard County Detention Center in Maryland by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) identified violations of ICE detention standards that not violated detainees’ rights and threatened their health and safety, such as “excessive” strip searches and not providing them enough meals. Similarly, a 2019 OIG report of visits to four separate facilities found “egregious violations of detention standards” including “nooses in detainee cells, overly restrictive segregation, inadequate medical care, unreported security incidents, and significant food safety issues…which put[] detainees at risk for food borne illness.”
Although people have the right to file grievances for these violations in their native language, there are no translations of the PBNDS available. In practice, this severely limits the ability of detained noncitizens to document these abuses. English speakers have been able to cite to the PBNDS to get ICE to cancel wrongful disciplinary actions against other detained people, to demand diets that comport to medical needs and religion, to receive adequate access to the library and research materials, and to make requests for medical attention, to name a few examples.
Detained organizers sought a Spanish translation of the PBNDS because ICE frequently violates their own standards and detained people are only able to obtain changes when they can file grievances citing the specific section that is being violated. With this translation, we hope to help more detained noncitizens document the abuses they face every day.
About Centro Legal de la Raza
Centro Legal de la Raza, in partnership with member organization and the Alameda County Immigration Legal and Education Partnership (ACILEP), have led efforts to identify how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operated in the Northern California Region since the beginning of March 2020, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented public health challenges the state faces. If you see ICE in action, suspect ICE activity in progress, or if you are detained or someone you know is detained by ICE, call ACILEP for rapid response and immigration legal services (510) 241-4011.
FB- @centrolegaldelaraza IG: @centro_legaldelaraza TW: @centrolegal
