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The two U.S. lawmakers have called on the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold a “urgent” hearing on the Trump administration’s decision to retain immigrants who have been detained in federal prisons (detained immigrants seeking asylum).
The request, sent Wednesday by California Democrats Sen. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, gave concerns about the treatment of detainees, explaining conditions at the Los Angeles federal lockup and citing letters from prison employees named who denounced “Donald Trump’s horror” due to the “Inhan” situation.
“We are wary of the lack of support for civil rights of these detainees,” the employee wrote in a two-page letter attached to the Senator’s request. “They haven’t been charged or convicted. We’re literally in prison.”
A spokesman for Padilla’s office said the senator had not received any responses from the Judiciary Committee.
A spokesman for the prison agency only confirms that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is holding detained migrants, but did not address any of the concerns raised in the letter, directing all other questions to the immigration and customs enforcement agency known as ICE.
The Senator’s request, and letters from prison workers, are being pushed by the Trump administration to house more migrants in the troubled federal prison system, which already has around 150,000 prisoners in housing across 122 facilities.
Earlier this month, a leaked copy of the agreement between immigration officers and the deputy director of the Prisons showed that several facilities have been allocated to house immigrants, including the Leavenworth prisons in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Miami and Canne.
As the Times previously reported, the understaffed federal prison in Berlin, New Hampshire also hopes to accommodate 500 detainees. In response, prison agency officials emailed staff at other facilities seeking volunteers from across the country willing to work in the New England rural lockup.
An email sent by prison union leaders indicates that the Trump administration may be considering plans to send immigrants to a recently closed “rape club” federal prison in Dublin, California.
Among these changes, immigration officers first sent several detainees to federal prisons in downtown Los Angeles in early February. Initially, as the Times previously reported, prison staff didn’t know where to house detainees or how to do their best to keep them separate from other inmates.
Eventually they put men in their own unit and created additional work for staff. Staff created additional work for staff who said they had “no guidance” on how to treat immigrants in a different way than typical federal prisoners. (The authorities asked not to name them as they were not allowed to publicly talk about the matter.)
Last weekend, immigration officers sent 12 more immigrants to the downtown LA facility after an expected ice sweep around the county.
This week’s prison employee’s letter described his first arrival at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles on February 2nd. He said prison workers cannot enter the system to use phones or contact their families because detainees are not regular prisoners.
“It is said that employees cannot separate them and have to make room for them. We are not trained or employed for this purpose. We don’t know what these individuals are being detained for,” the letter states. “BOP resources are being used to close detainees, not where limited resources should go.”
The letter follows detailed issues that arise during the first Trump administration when detainees were sent to federal prisons in Victorville.
“There have been cases of violence caused by reports of detainees receiving inadequate medical care, employees have grown thinly, working overtime, and lack of appropriate staff resources,” the letter said. “There is a threat of suicide by some detainees, some reportedly exercising their legal right to seek asylum in this country.”
This time, prison employees said there was no reason to expect something different as government agencies are struggling with staffing shortages.
“It appears that both fear of Donald Trump and the need for income are driving these decisions. But the bottom line is that BOP employees didn’t sign up for this,” the employee wrote. “It appears that this resource and my colleagues’ abuse is nothing more than political interests.”
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