The Trump administration is considering plans to send immigrants facing deportation to recently closed federal prisons, according to an email sent by federal prison officials. Apparently.
A federal correctional facility in Dublin, about 20 miles east of Auckland, closed last year after more than half a dozen correctional officers and former guards were charged or convicted of a female prisoner who was sexually abused. It was done.
Currently, the Federal Bureau of Prisons website shows that no prisoners are held at the facility, but the long-term fate of the complex was by no means clear.
However, on Thursday, locals #33 on the U.S. Council of Government Employees, representing federal prison workers, sent an information request to the prison system in search of data on facility closures. Union leaders expressed concern about the facility’s future in several paragraphs in the four-page request.
“FCI Dublin completed at least one evaluation on July 22, 2024, which we believe is considered a ‘structural assessment’,” the letter states. “The union has learned that this assessment is being provided on ice for what appears to be likely to take over the facility.”
The move comes days after the Federal Prisons Bureau confirmed that migrant detainees are housing in several facilities. This sparked concerns from union officials who appear to be preparing to house immigrants on a large scale.
“My fear is that the bureau will just become an ice branch, but that’s not our job,” John Costelnik, Western Regional Vice President of the Correctional Workers Union, told The Times. . “Our main focus is keeping our community safe from convicted murderers and rapists, and our staff are incredible, even as they deal with staffing crisis. I’m at work.
“But now we’re throwing additional missions at us,” he said.
The Prisons Bureau confirmed via email that it will “support detainees with U.S. immigration and customs enforcement by residential detainees,” but prison spokesmos said the legal status of the detainees or where they will be held. refused to provide information about
A spokesman for one prison cited “safety and security reasons” in order to decline comment, while another prison introduced all immigration-related questions to ICE.
In an email Wednesday afternoon, ICE said that “enhanced enforcement operations” had received sufficient arrests because “requires greater detention capacity.”
“While we cannot review individual pre-decision conversations, we can ensure that ICE is investigating all options to meet current and future detention requirements.”
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has begun strengthening immigration enforcement projects across the country, pledging to deport “millions of people” to their country. ICE currently only has a budget that will hold around 41,000 people, according to the Associated Press.
These detainees are typically housed in ice processing centres, private prison facilities, and local prisons contracting with federal immigration officials. However, the new administration’s more ambitious deportation objectives have led authorities to entertain unadulterated alternatives.
This month, the US military launched a ferry-based flight of detained immigrants to a US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and President El Salvador, President Naive Buquere, has announced that US civil servants and citizens of the country’s famous He offered to send him to a severe prison. .
The first indication the White House planned to retain immigrants detained in US federal prisons came later last month.
On January 26, Union Leadership wrote to Senator Alex Padilla’s office to state senators to help Trump officials make room for more prisoners at facilities around the country. He warned that he had begun to instruct the station.
“Currently, the Trump administration is auditing Bedspaces by the BOP, asking facilities that combine prisoners to create space (free the entire unit),” the letter said.
Kostelnik explained that the last thing that happened was during Trump’s first term. At the time, BOP officials were forced to create space for 1,600 immigrants, including many asylum seekers, in federal prisons in Oregon, California, Arizona and Texas.
By August 2018 – Two months after federal officials publicly confirmed the controversial housing scheme, the American Civil Liberties Union is a violation of immigrant due-process rights under the fifth amendment. He filed a lawsuit claiming that. By October, news reports said the administration had retreated the use of federal prisons to house immigrant detainees.
According to Costelnik, these months were found to be confusing for detainees and prison staff who weren’t equipped to protect immigrants. Communication was sometimes a challenge as many detainees did not speak English or any other languages spoken by prison staff.
“I’m worried that this will come soon,” he wrote in an email in January to Padilla’s office.
Apparently the first federal prison to house immigrants detained in California was the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. Two officials familiar with the situation said the Homeland Security investigation appeared over the weekend with a group of around nine migrants from Africa. Authorities requested anonymity as they were not permitted to speak publicly.
Initially, prison staff were not the best way to accept detainees or stay away from other inmates. Eventually, they put men in their units within the facility and created additional work for staff.
Officials also began discussing how to adjust staffing schedules to handle more weekend intakes, although the number of migrants held in L.A. lockups haven’t increased, He said he was expecting it.
It is not clear that a number of other facilities are tasked with retaining immigrants, but last week, The Associated Press reported that federal prisons in Miami and atlanta federal prisons are also being used for that purpose. follow.
Recently, federal prison officials have begun asking workers to consider taking temporary transfers elsewhere to manage the influx of ice detainees.
On Monday, the captain of FCI Sheridan, a medium-sized security facility in Oregon, sent an email there to round out a willing volunteer to work across the country at FCI Berlin, a rural rural midsize security facility in New Hampshire. We concluded the volunteers who are expected to receive it. At least 500 immigrants from the ice.
According to a copy of the email obtained by The Times, Colonel Joseph Cerone said, “Staff will be posting correctional services to support BOP’s mission to temporarily contain ice detainees.” He says that. “Given that we expect more than 500 detainees to go to Berlin, we could require medical services and psychology support, in addition to custody assistance.”
The email did not specify when immigrants were expected to arrive.
The influx of detainees could strain the already understood federal prison system, which has long been plagued by violence and abuse. Perhaps most notably FCI Dublin, one of several facilities allocated by the department for closure or deactivation last year.
However, it may not be that allotted for use in ice. On Wednesday, Costelnik told the Times he just learned that immigration officers were planning to visit federal facilities in Morgantown.
“To the staff who are already nervous and growing,” Kostelnik told The Times.
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