DENVER — Three immigration advocacy groups filed a complaint this week with the Department of Homeland Security over an increased use and misuse of solitary confinement at the Aurora Contract Detention Facility, which is used by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The complaint was filed by the American Immigration Council, the National Immigration Project and Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network. The groups allege "the Aurora facility's practice of overusing and misusing solitary confinement as a tool to control behavior instead of providing a safe environment and appropriate medical and mental healthcare."
The complaint also states that the facility engages in an overuse by isolating people before a disciplinary hearing has taken place. In one case, a woman was accused by a fellow detainee of spitting on her bed.
She was later found not guilty of spitting on the bed as she was accused but only after she spent six days in solitary confinement.
During her time in confinement, she experienced hallucinations and also said her experience was made worse by sewage water coming up from her toilet in the cell.
Also in the report, "Felix" was placed in solitary confinement for eating too slowly.
He said, "If I spoke too loudly, solitary. If I climbed on top of a table to get a guard's attention, solitary. If I had suicidal thoughts, solitary."
He said that he was forced into solitary confinement an additional 10 times during his detention in Aurora before ICE transferred him to another facility.
The complaint also describes safety concerns of survivors of assault or violence, the punishment of individuals for having a disability and the pattern of placing individuals with disabilities at risk of self-harm in solitary confinement.
There, too, are allegations that GEO Group Inc., which owns and operates the facility, failed to ensure professional conduct by its staff, jeopardizing the safety of those detained at the Aurora facility.
"The reason we put together this complaint is because client after client kept complaining about being placed in solitary confinement," said Laura Lunn, director of advocacy and litigation at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network. "We started scratching our heads and saying, 'Is this happening more often than we realize?'"
Lunn said lawyers who work in the facility have seen an increase in solitary confinement since before or during the pandemic, when it was used for medical segregation.
"They realized it was a way to control flow of people and conduct and behavior and now we are at a place where so many more people are being placed in solitary confinement than ever before," said Lunn.
In a statement, the facility said:
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is committed to ensuring that all those in its custody reside in safe, secure, and humane environments under appropriate conditions of confinement. The agency takes allegations of misconduct very seriously – personnel are held to the highest standards of professional and ethical behavior, and when a complaint is received, it is investigated thoroughly to determine veracity and ensure comprehensive standards are strictly maintained and enforced. Allegations of ICE employee or contractor misconduct must be reported to the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) at 800-323-8603 or the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) at 833-442-3677 or ICEOPRIntake@ice.dhs.gov, a monitored electronic mailbox. ICE encourages reporting detention facility complaints to the Detention Reporting and Information Line (DRIL) at 888-351-4024, a toll-free service with trained operators to help on a wide range of topics – language assistance is also available.
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