Orit Ben-Ezzer/ZUMA Wire
A Honduran immigrant held at a troubled detention center in California’s high desert died Wednesday night while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. Vincente Caceres-Maradiaga, 46, was receiving treatment for several medical conditions while waiting for an immigration court to decide whether to deport him, according to an ICE. declaration. He collapsed while playing soccer at the detention facility and died on the way to a local hospital.
Caceres-Marradiaga’s death is the latest in a series of deaths among inmates held at the Adelanto detention facility, which is operated by the GEO Group, the country’s largest private prison company. Three people detained in the facility have died in the last three months, including Osmar Epifanio Gonzalez-Gadbaa 32-year-old Nicaraguan found himself hanged in his cell on March 22, and Sergio Alonso Lopeza Mexican man who died of internal bleeding on April 13 after spending more than two months in custody.
Since opening in 2011, Adelanto has faced accusations of insufficient medical care and poor conditions. In July 2015, 29 members of Congress sent a letter to ICE and federal inspectors requesting an investigation into health and safety issues at the facility. They cited the death of Fernando Dominguez in 2012 at the facility, saying it was the result of “flagrant errors” by the center’s medical staff, which did not give him adequate medical examinations or allow him to receive timely treatment off site. In November 2015, 400 inmates began a hunger strike, demanding better medical and dental care along with other reforms.
The federal government guarantees GEO that a minimum of 975 immigrants will be held at the facility and pays $111 per detainee per day.
However, last year, the city of Adelanto, as an intermediary between ICE and GEO, made an agreement to extend the company’s contract until 2021. The federal government guarantees GEO that a minimum of 975 immigrants will be held at the facility and pays $111 per detainee per day, according to California state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), who has fought to limit private immigration detention. After that point, ICE only paid $50 per detainee per day — an incentive to fill more beds.
Of California’s four private immigration detention centers, three use local governments as intermediaries between ICE and private prison companies. On Tuesday, the California Senate voted 26-13 to ban such contracts, supporting a bill that could shut down Adelanto when its contract expires in 2021. Act of dignity not of detentionauthored by Lara, would prevent local governments from signing or extending contracts with private prison companies to detain immigrants starting in 2019. The bill would also require all facilities in the state that hold ICE detainees, including private detention centers and public prisons, to meet national standards for conditions of detention – which gives state prosecutors the power to hold operators of detention centers accountable for poor conditions in their structures.
An identical bill passed last year, but was vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown. “I have been troubled by recent reports detailing the unsatisfactory conditions and limited access to counsel in private immigration detention facilities,” Brown wrote in his article. veto message last September But he referred it to the Department of Homeland Security, which was then reviewing its use of immigration detention for profit. In that review, the Homeland Security Advisory Council rejected the continued use of private prison companiesto detain immigrants, citing the “inferiority of the private prison model.” However, since President Donald Trump took office, the federal government has moved to expand private immigration detention, signing the A 110 million dollar deal with GEO in April to build the first new immigration detention center under Trump.
Nine people died in ICE custody in fiscal year 2017, which began October 1. Meanwhile, stock of private prisons have almost doubled in value since the day of the election.
